


Angarum

by andloawhatsit



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Lake House (2006) Fusion, Big brother Eddie Kaspbrak, Cultural Catholicism, Digital Art, Dysfunctional Family, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Embroidery, Fix-It, Healing, Letters, M/M, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Quantum physics but emotionally, Romance, Slow Burn, Stanley Uris Lives, The Turtle CAN Help Us (IT), Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 14:50:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 64,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23109808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andloawhatsit/pseuds/andloawhatsit
Summary: After the summer from hell, Richie Tozier blows up his life and flees east for a cabin in the country, promising both his friends and himself that some time alone will be enough for him to get it together.One year earlier, Eddie Kaspbrak dutifully joins his in-laws upstate for a long weekend, only to discover that a stranger with a shocking claim seems to be using his mailbox.(AThe Lake HouseAU)
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 97
Kudos: 195





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is now complete! Thank you to everyone reading and sharing your thoughts with me. I have so appreciated it! Working on this story has brought me a lot of happiness--I hope it brings some to you as well. 
> 
> The _wonderful!!!_ posters for Richie's shows that you'll see throughout were designed by [ aerynsvn](https://aerynsvn.tumblr.com/post/613335943810793472/some-posters-for-richies-shows-in-the-reddie-fic) ([bisexualstevenrogers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualstevenrogers) on AO3). The [embroidery illustrations](https://andloawhatsit.tumblr.com/tagged/embroidering-my-feelings-again) were done by me.
> 
> Content warnings appear as needed in the notes at the end of each chapter, in case that's something you'd like to check in advance.

_Messenger of Sympathy and Love  
Servant of Parted Friends  
Consoler of the Lonely  
Bond of the Scattered Family  
Enlarger of the Common Life_

_— Charles W. Eliot, _ [ _“The Letter”_ ](https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/mission-motto.pdf)

# AUTUMN

_And it seemed as though in a little while the solution would be found, and then a new and splendid life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that they had still a long, long road before them, and that the most complicated and difficult part of it was only just beginning._

_— Anton Chekhov, “_ [ _The Lady with the Dog_ ](http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/webpub/english/compclass/Public%20Domain%20Readings/Chekhov%20The%20Lady%20with%20the%20Dog.pdf) _”_

**Shots — Not about Eddie — Think-pieces — A writing holiday — Even the gay bits  
_Richie_**

With the exception of a few minor developments—mold in the coffee cup and cereal bowl he’d left in the kitchen sink, a similarly dank clump of clothing in the washing machine—Richie returned to Chicago in mid-July to find his condo just as he’d left it. Laundry littered his bedroom floor, the garbage needed dealing with, and his copy of _Foucault’s Pendulum_, a gift from Jenny, sat on the edge of the bathtub, right where he’d last set it down. And still it felt like someone else’s home. He felt like a tenant in another’s body, that the man who’d come back was not the one who’d left. He emptied his duffel into the dresser and texted the others to say he’d made it, because Ben had asked him to, then stood in the kitchen doing shots, because he was efficient like that, and when at last he no longer thought of much at all he lay fully-dressed on his faded comforter and let the world rotate around him.

Sometime later, he was woken by a phone call. He hadn’t replaced his contacts, though, after buying a new phone in Bangor on his way to the airport, so he had no idea who it was. A New York number. Jenny, maybe, because he _had _Bev’s number. Still mildly drunk, he answered.

“Richie? Is that you?” Jenny’s voice was a knife in his ear.

“No, this is the guy that stole his phone,” said Richie. He sat up in bed, then regretted it, and flopped back, stifling a moan. He needed a shower. “Who are you?”

She ignored that. “I’m so glad you finally picked up. Where are you?”

Richie flicked the switch on the bedside lamp. The light escaped the crooked lampshade, piercing his eyes, so he flicked the switch again. “Jenny, slow down, please.” His mouth tasted foul. He couldn’t remember the last time he had brushed his teeth. “I told you: I had to go home to deal with some shit.” _I had to go home-o-sexual_, said his brain, which he ignored.

“You texted me _once. _I called your mother and she didn’t know where you were either.”

“You called Maggie?” Richie’s head throbbed. “What, did I stay out past my curfew?” That would explain the missed calls from his mother. “And Milwaukee’s not home.”

“You weren’t answering calls or texts. And what do you mean, ‘Milwaukee’s not home?’ Where did you go?”

“Maine,” said Richie, and caught up to Jenny’s original question. “I only got back yesterday. And I wrecked my phone.”

“That’s not the only thing,” said Jenny. “You bombed a show, then dropped off the face of the earth. You scared Pete, even—that’s why he called me.”

Pete was his agent. Another call he’d have to make. Richie frowned.

“Did it ever occur to you that I might worry about you?”

“Two of my best friends died,” said Richie, not because he wanted to tell her about Stan or Eddie, not about Eddie, but because he wanted her to stop talking so he could chase oblivion again.

She did stop, but only briefly. “What? Who? I talked to Pete the other day.”

_Jenny Carson, one; Richie Tozier’s social life, zero_. “No,” he said. “From when I was a kid.”

“Honey, I had no idea.”

Bev’s voice echoed in his aching head._ Honey, he’s dead._

“I’m going to come over.”

He grit out a refusal

“No? Richie, let me help you.”

He thought of the mold in his dishes and the clutter on the floor and the shirt he’d stolen from Eddie’s room. When Ben drove them back to the hotel from the police station after some mug in a cheap suit decided there would be no charges over Bowers’s death, he had tapped his fingers against the steering wheel and said, “Rich, look, Bev found out that Myra Kaspbrak is coming tomorrow and we figured you don’t want to be around for that. Unless you do?” Richie had given him an incredulous look, after which Ben had offered to help him move to another hotel and even invited him back to Nebraska, said they could leave that night, but Richie had only patted his arm and said, “No thanks, Ben, I’ve got to get back.” Feeling less than real, mechanically faulty, he had used the computer in the lobby to book a plane ticket from Bangor to Chicago, grabbed his duffle, then snuck past the police tape over Eddie’s door and stood disoriented in that fusty room, for it seemed that Eddie might return at any moment, the hotel comforter pulled from the bed and folded in one corner and his luggage up on a chair in another. _Hotel comforters are not clean, dude. And you always store luggage away from the bed—that’s anti-bedbug 101. _He’d said that as though Richie were a fool not to know, someone that Eddie needed to take care of. Richie remembered that he was on the phone with his ex-girlfriend and said, “I’m not your problem anymore, Jen.”

“We broke up three weeks ago—I’m not going to ghost you. Let’s go out instead. We’ll get a drink—”

“Yes, we _broke up_,” said Richie. “You called me a man-child and walked out on me in a restaurant? It’s on Twitter, in case you forgot. You’re not my girlfriend or my mom, so leave it alone.”

Silence.

Richie swallowed against the urge to puke. Saliva rushed into his mouth and his stomach rolled. He closed his eyes and tried to think of nothing at all, but it didn’t work. “I have had a hell of a couple weeks. Please don’t have hurt feelings at me.”

“You prick,” said Jenny, thickly. “Twitter! I don’t have to live _my _life in deference to _your_ career. And by the way, ‘My girlfriend caught me masturbating to her friend’s Facebook page?’ _I _know it’s fake, Richie, but all other people know is that _I _was your girlfriend, so thanks for casting me as the uptight bitch in the Trashmouth comedy hour.” She hung up.

Richie checked his hand. Hardly shaking at all. He opened Twitter, then, surprised that he remembered his password, and made the post he’d been thinking about since he left Eddie’s room for the last time.

_@TrashmouthTozierOfficial I’m gay. Not a joke_

Then he stumbled to the shower, where his nausea overcame him.

***

_The Chicago Tribune_ ran a story about him in their entertainment section—online only, not the print edition, and really, more of a footnote in a larger piece about “queer entertainers” in the city. Since he declined to comment, either to the _Tribune _or to anyone else, by virtue of continuing to ignore Pete’s calls and his own notifications, Pete’s naturally cautious management—they’d worked together a long time—held back the storm for a bit. He might have been able to keep it up, too, until Richie got his act together, if Richie could have caught a break.

Big _if_.

When the think-pieces started—misogyny in comedy, expectations of privacy versus the obligations of public figures, closeting, outing and being out, the ethics of ghostwriting, and on and on—Jenny texted him to apologize, saying she’d never meant for her post to blow up the way it had. Richie had started it, after all, and she’d wanted to get some things off her chest, wasn’t that her right, and by the time she had…

Examining his bloodshot eyes over the bathroom sink, he tried very carefully to set his glass on the counter—he missed and it fell to the floor, scattering jagged pieces over the dusty tile—and said, “Don’t do it, Tozier. Don’t. You opened the door.” Then he texted her anyway. <That’s why you added the bit pimping your side-hustle? Fuck you.> He couldn’t control the papers, but he never would have pegged her to twist the knife on fucking _Facebook_. That hurt.

She replied, <You left the position open> and that was that. At least the fucked-up black hole that was Derry, Maine had swallowed news of Bowers’s death. He couldn’t bear for that to become public knowledge. He never wanted to think about that again.

Richie ignored two calls from Bill and one from Mike, as well as several messages from Ben and Bev, had a nightcap—or three—while watching _How It’s Made _videos on YouTube, and passed out on the sofa. When he woke the next day, he waited until noon (he’d blinked his eyes open at 11:30, so it wasn’t hard), then called Maggie. Because it was Wednesday, he knew she’d be out for lunch with her girlfriends, the same date she’d kept since her retirement. “Hi, Mom,” he told her answering machine, imagining the cassette reels turning in the clunky old thing. “Jenny told me she’d been in touch with you. Sorry if I made you worry. I’ve been in the zone with some work stuff and haven’t come up for air. All good, though, so wanted to let you know. Talk to you later.” He ended the call, then rushed to the toilet to vomit.

***

People kept trying to reach him. He’d been papped before and as he’d reminded Jenny, some random had filmed her dumping his ass over gyoza, though that unpleasantness had been quickly overtaken by Derry, but since he’d never done anything all that interesting, tabloids-wise, he’d had it relatively easy, even once he started getting recognized out and about more often than not. The fresh intensity of their interest was disconcerting. Sure, he’d expect it, maybe, if he lived in LA, but he lived in _Chicago. _A journalist—he used the term loosely—from out of state found his home address. People snapped photos of him on the street, and not in a fun way. He had to turn off the notifications for both Twitter and Instagram, the latter of which he only had because Pete had bullied him into it and which he had re-downloaded out of a sense of… he didn’t know what. Masochism? By mid-August, he still wasn’t answering calls, had stopped getting dressed, and was eating delivery pretty much exclusively. Bill invited him to California, Ben and Bev to Nebraska, and Mike to join his road trip, but Richie turned them all down. He had decided to write his own stuff—more to get the other Losers off his back than anything else, and to give him an excuse not to leave the house or be seen, generally, what on earth else would he do with his life?—but he managed little more than sitting in front of his computer, watching the cursor blink.

***

He had no photos of Eddie, he realized, one afternoon, as either a child or a man, and he when he searched online, all he found was Eddie’s obituary, shared by a funeral home in Manhattan. _Eddie is survived by Myra, his wife of 17 years_. He read it again and again, because it hurt when he did, and was precariously balanced between still hungover and drunk again when his buzzer rang.

“Finally,” he said, and stumbled to his feet.

The girl who delivered for the late-night noodle place around the corner knocked on his door a couple minutes later. Richie liked her because she didn’t chitchat: she turned the food over, took his money, and left. That day, though, as he flipped through his wallet, she said, “You’re Richie Tozier, aren’t you?”

Richie, who ordered under the name “Wentworth Morris” and paid in cash to avoid such encounters, said, “Don’t even think about trying to snag a photo, kid.”

She fussed with the brim of her baseball cap. “Nothing like that. I wanted to say…” She coughed and shoved her hand into her jacket pocket. “Well, uh, good for you, I guess.”

“It’s been super,” said Richie, who had been wearing the same sweatpants waking and sleeping for a week or so. “Revolutionized my life.”

“My dad kicked me out,” she said. “When I came out. Didn’t think I’d take the ultimatum.”

“My dad’s dead,” said Richie. He was distantly cognizant that he was not saying the right things and ought to apologize. Instead, he pressed cash enough for the bill and a twenty-dollar tip into her hand and closed the door on her.

She knocked again.

Richie didn’t answer.

“Mr. To—Morris,” she called through the door. “Your food…”

He opened the door, took his noodles, then closed it again.

***

In late August, Bill texted, <Semi-regular reminder to provide signs of life, please.>

Richie replied, <Do you think this is how Paris Hilton felt under house arrest? No one’s mailing me any gifts, though…> because it was easy to joke over text and joking meant he was fine. He was always fine.

<What do you think of this?> Bill sent a link to a cabin rental outside Rosendale, New York. <One of Audra’s friends stayed there in the summer to finish a screenplay and raved about it.>

<Fancy> said Richie. <You and Audra going glamping?>

<Not us> said Bill. <Pack your bags, Trashmouth. Your friends are sending you on a writing holiday.>

Richie blinked back tears, feeling ridiculous. <I didn’t literally want gifts. I’m not impoverished. I can send myself on holiday.>

<It’s not about money> said Bill. <It’s because we love you.>

<Even the gay bits?>

<Yes, even the gay bits.>

The phone rang, but Richie didn’t answer.

Another text: <You can pick up or I can fly out there.>

The phone rang again and Richie took a deep breath. ”Hello?”

“It’s me,” said Bill.

“I figured.”

“I’m sorry you felt you couldn’t say anything, Rich. Sorry I ever made you feel that way. I wasn’t—I didn’t—I was wrapped up in—”

“It wasn’t _you_,” said Richie, embarrassed. Bill had enough to deal with when they were kids. “I didn’t tell anyone.” The whole truth was objectively humiliating: the full extent of Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier’s gay experience was one fleeting touch at the age of 13, and in adulthood, kissing a stranger behind a bar. Once. At least Jenny never knew about _that. _They’d still been dating at the time.

“Me and Bev teased you about getting married,” said Bill.

“I could have been gay-married,” said Richie, defensive, though while the notion was possible, it was not at all probable. “You didn’t know.”

“But that’s not what I meant, so I’m sorry.”

Richie took a deep breath. Let it out. “Thanks, Big Bill,” he said.

“I know you said you wanted to be alone,” said Bill. “We thought maybe this would help, but still let you know that you aren’t. We booked you for the week over Labour Day, okay?”

“Sure,” said Richie, unable to muster further expression.

“I know you feel bad.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’ll get better.” Richie pushed past the platitude. “I know.”

“I think it will, but that wasn’t what I was going to say,” said Bill. “I know you feel bad, so don’t think we don’t notice. I love you, Rich.”

“I’m not gay for _you_,” said Richie.

“No, not for me.”

Richie said, “I can’t talk about this.” Mercifully, Bill let it go. “You didn’t make Mike pay, did you?”

“No!” said Bill, affronted. “Actually, I was talking to Bev about setting him up at some nice spots along his route. I know he’s trying to see ‘the real America,’ but I want him to—“

“Get to feel fancy?”

“Exactly,” said Bill.

“Well, count me in on that,” said Richie. “How’s Audra doing?”

“Good,” said Bill, after a pause. “We’re trying. We’re working on it. _Attic Room_’s finished now, so we’re taking a break. Not from each other! From other stuff. Together.”

“Disgusting,” said Richie. “Married friends are the worst.”

Bill laughed. “Fuck you, Trashmouth.”

“Say hi for me?”

“For sure.”

**The novelty of solitude — Not at this address — Only teasing — A family of his own  
_Eddie_**

Eddie went for a run in the coolness of the early morning, having left Myra asleep in the bed they always shared at her father’s place in Ulster County and snuck outside lest he disturb his in-laws at their coffee and be sucked into conversation—again—about the upcoming visit of Pope Francis to the US.

Myra didn’t like him jogging, said it made his asthma play up, but he felt stronger for it and besides, he always had his inhaler on hand. Paused in the driveway, he stretched and rubbed his hands together, enjoying the brisk air. He and Myra joined her family at their place outside Rosendale four-plus times a year and he’d worked out a route he was fond of, appreciating the novelty of solitude.

A circuitous half-hour later, he reached the edge of the property and the end of the long lane that led to the house, small in the distance, and paused to catch his breath and collect the mail—the flag on the box was up—while he was there. The Moores carried subscriptions by the pound, so there was a sheaf of it, largely addressed to Neil, but some to his wife, Ellen, as well as Myra’s _Town and Country_ and her younger sister Mackenzie’s _Bust_, which they caught up on over holidays, and a thick envelope addressed to Richard W. Tozier. Eddie grabbed the permanent marker that hung from the mailbox on a long string and marked the envelope with “NOT AT THIS ADDRESS” before tucking it back into the box.

Myra and Mackenzie had joined their parents at the table by the time Eddie returned with the mail bundled his arm. “Morning,” he said. “Anybody know a Richard Tozier?”

Neil and Ellen shook their heads, a matching set.

“Thanks, Eddie,” said Mackenzie, taking her magazine. “You mean that comedian? His humour’s so 90s man-child.”

“What does that mean?” said Eddie. “Anyway, someone named ‘Richard Tozier’ got some mail. I marked it up and stuck it back in the box. Morning, sweetheart.” He leaned to kiss Myra. They’d had their 17th anniversary the month before—where did the time go?

She pulled back, though not before she took _Town and Country_. “Eddie, you’re all sweaty. I wish you wouldn’t run: I worry about your allergies.”

“God forbid we aggravate Ted’s allergies,” said Neil, chuckling. He was broad-shouldered and firmly built, greying but vital, and preoccupied with health and fitness in the way of a man who had never been obliged to do without either. He was as comfortable passing judgement on his family as on perfect strangers and he was implacable, impossible to argue with.

“Name’s still Eddie,” said Eddie anyway, on his way to the shower. “Same as always.”

Myra came into the bathroom to brush her teeth while he was shaving. “It’s me,” she said. “You know Daddy’s only teasing, don’t you?”

“Same joke since I met him in 1997, yes,” said Eddie, raising his voice over the water. “At least he’s ditched the limp wrists routine.”

“Don’t be so sensitive,” said Myra, around her toothbrush. “That’s just his sense of humour. He’s been very good to us.”

“I relish our time together,” said Eddie. “I’ve got to do my call this afternoon, okay?”

Myra tugged the shower curtain back. “But it’s our holiday.”

“I only got the time off by promising to call in,” said Eddie, gesturing with the hand that held his razor, flicking foam against the curtain. In fact, Eddie had declined his colleague Lucas’s offer to cover for him and was looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet, not to mention that he didn’t trust anyone else with his files.

“Fine,” said Myra. “But I don’t think that’s very considerate. You could have pushed harder.”

“I happen to enjoy being employed,” said Eddie.

“Oh, you,” she said, waving a hand at him.

Eddie stuck his tongue out at her. She laughed, which was what he had wanted, and left. He finished washing, then dressed and medicated: vitamins, allergy medicine, and preventative Aspirin. He and Myra spent the morning reading on the deck, after which he cooked lunch for the rest of the family—including Myra’s younger brother, Christopher, who had arrived late in the morning and who very adroitly dodged questions about whether he was going to church and if he intended ever to bring that girl of his around—and after that, excused himself to work.

***

He went to bed early that night, his incipient headache not helped by the Moores antagonizing Christopher about his mystery girlfriend while Christopher antagonized Mackenzie about her grades, but the pain had settled by the time Myra joined him.

She changed into her nightshirt and climbed into bed, smelling faintly of mint toothpaste and rosewater. “Feeling better?”

Eddie put down the magazine he hadn’t been reading. “Yeah, thanks.” She leaned over and kissed him, and he kissed her back, moved toward her, put his hand on her thigh. “Definitely feeling better.” He unfastened the top button of his pajama shirt, but she stilled his hand.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course you can,” said Eddie, blinking, thrown off.

Myra bit her lip. “Do you want to have kids?”

Eddie flinched. “You know I do. What, you think I’ve been lying to you all this time?”

Myra frowned and shifted uncomfortably. “We know it’s not me.”

“So it’s my fault?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“What _are_ you saying, exactly?” His headache sent a resurgent flare through his temple. “Be specific.”

“I just think that since we can’t find a physical problem”—she articulated each word carefully—“we may need to look elsewhere.”

“You mean adoption?” Eddie was surprised: when he had broached the subject before, it had gone over like a lead balloon.

“Not that,” said Myra, putting her hand to her chest. “I mean, emotionally. If you _intended _it_. _If you really _wanted_ to have children with me, we would—”

“Jesus, Myra!”

“Don’t curse at me, please. It’s normal for fear to cause blockages in our lives.”

“My dick is not _emotionally blocked_.” Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose. “I love you, but that is ridiculous. It’s not a matter of _intention_.” He put his hand to her cheek, but she pulled away. “I want to raise a family with you, and we will, okay? I’ll make it okay.” In actuality, he didn’t strictly enjoy sex, at least not as much as he’d expected to when he was younger, but there was nothing wrong, mechanically or medically (he ought to know), and he wanted to raise a family. It was his ornery spirit: his mother drove him up the wall, Myra’s parents too, but he knew that _he _could do better. What he wanted was a family of his own. He kissed her softly and she welcomed him, that time. He said, “it’s okay,” and kissed her again, and made love to her in the dark.

***

He collected another bundle of mail on his run the next morning—a quilting magazine for Ellen and _The Economist_ and a survivalist magazine for Neil—and also found the same package as the day before, addressed to Richard W. Tozier. At first he thought the mailman simply hadn’t collected it, but then he saw that it was empty, that only the torn envelope had been left, and that his own writing had been scratched out. The new note was written in a scrawl nothing like his own neat hand.

_ Nope, this is me: Richie Tozier, booked September 3-10 at 27 Brautigan Road as per the rental agreement. I’m not expecting any letters (it’s 2016…), but if any mail does come, it should come here. Thx. _

Eddie frowned, irritated by the man’s use of “thx.” There was a small space left unmarked on the back of the envelope, so he picked up the marker and made use of it.

_ You can’t “book” Neil’s property, whether today or a year from now. (It’s 2015.) _

He wondered if he the kids from the farm up the road were messing with him. They did enjoy pranking weekenders. He tossed the envelope into the box and knocked the flag down. With the magazines tucked under his arm, he was ready to jog back when the metal screeched. He looked over his shoulder. The flag was up.

**Postcards are for Losers — Dreams — Sons and mothers  
_Richie_**

Richie had bought a handful of postcards and a book of stamps at the gas station and scribbled notes to the Losers to let them know that he had landed okay and was thinking of them, partially for the nostalgia of snail mail and partially to avoid actual conversation, and when he took them to the box at the end of the lane as a reward for having written 500 (garbage) words and stayed off the booze all day, he found a welcome package from the property manager—maps and brochures and contact numbers and what-not. Someone, though, had drawn a slash through his name. He took the envelope’s contents, but wrote his own note on the envelope itself with the marker strung from the mailbox. He could have called the property manager, he supposed, but he didn’t actually want to talk to anyone. Productive solitude: that was the point of this little adventure.

He went back to the cabin—so called very loosely, he thought, as it had a spacious entryway branching into the kitchen and dining room, three bedrooms, and an upstairs, plus a loft over the living room—and decided he so hated everything he’d written that he deleted it. _Trashing the Trashmouth_. He heard Eddie’s voice in his head, _I fucking knew it_, sounding so pleased—not that Richie was a hack, but to know him so well. Pleased that Richie was _his _hack.

“That is wishful fucking thinking,” Richie told himself, fixing a bowl of cereal. “You never belonged to him.” Because it was his mother’s birthday, he called to wish her a good one, but because he knew that for the past two years, since his father had died, her friends had taken her out for dinner, he chose a time when she would almost certainly not be at home. Rewarded with the _click_ of her answering machine, he poured himself a bourbon—superbly paired with his corn flakes—and said, “Hi, Mom. Sorry I missed you.” _Not_. “Wanted to say happy birthday, many happy returns, etcetera, etcetera.” She was 70 that year and probably healthier than he was.

***

Bev had asked him if he dreamed, after the deadlights, but because she’d said that hers had stopped, Richie had lied. No, he told her, he never remembered his dreams. He had hoped to will that lie into reality, that his nightmares would stop with his change of scenery, but that had been wishful thinking, too.

That night’s fresh horror, courtesy of his fucked-up psyche, was Eddie in the deadlights, his cheek bandaged and his eyes milk-white, hanging limply ten feet above the ground while Richie watched from below, frozen, because Eddie had shoved him out of the way and taken It’s full force. Eddie’s mouth hung open and the blood dripping from his nose defied gravity.

Richie woke confused by the strange room around him and as he slowly came back to himself, he whispered, “It’s not real, it’s not.” The bummer thing was, reality wasn’t that much better. Not with Eddie gone. Not without Stan. He looked at his watch: seven o’clock in the morning, disgusting, but because the dimly lit room was still heavy with nightmare, he got up, pulled on his sweats and sneakers, and went outside. Creative types did walks, right?

But it turned out that being alone with your thoughts in nature was the same as quality time with them anywhere else: bad, even with a compensatory cigarette. Annoyed with himself and with life, generally, he stomped to the mailbox, where he found another note, one with barely any free space for Richie’s hasty and ill-tempered reply.

_ Talk about yourself in the third-person if you must. I’ve got the booking right here. And I know what year it is. (2016.) _

He slammed the mailbox shut and bashed the flag down. Why did everything have to be such a pain in the ass?

The flag popped up.

Richie must have jumped a foot in the air. “The clown is dead,” he said, trying to soothe himself. “You know It’s dead. You watched It die. You held It’s heart in your hand.” He slapped at the mailbox door like it could bite him and it fell open. The envelope was gone, but in its place was the torn-off cover of a magazine bearing a neatly written message.

_ First of all, I’m not Neil. No third-person—I’m not that kind of douche. Neil is my father-in-law. He owns the cabin. _

_ Second, it’s 2015, or The Economist has fucked up its deliveries. _

The year on the magazine was circled. Richie brought it close to his face, peering intently. He pulled out his phone and googled “The Economist September 2015.” That was the cover. Breathing hard, he stared at the note. The clown was dead. He knew that for sure. Therefore, the note had to be something else. He flipped the page over and set it against the mailbox to write.

_ Okay, I’ll bite. If you’re not that kind of douche, what kind are you? I’m definitely in 2016. _

After closing the mailbox, he waited a few minutes, shifting his weight from foot to foot and feeling foolish.

Then the flag rose.

_ The kind that doesn’t believe in time-travelling mailboxes. Yet here we are—Labour Day weekend 2015. Tell me more about the future. I’ll check the box again this afternoon. (Assuming that time will pass at the same rate? If this is even happening. I’m not convinced. For one thing, Neil would never give this place up. For another, time travel is impossible.) _

***

Back at the cabin, a dog sat on the front step. A fucking Pomeranian. Richie was sorely tempted to abandon the entire venture, get into his rental car, and drive away. He didn’t want to go near the thing: he was quaking with fear over a pint-sized animal. He remembered Eddie’s incredulous, high-pitched, _Next time? _“Don’t move,” he said.

The dog wagged its little tail.

“You obviously belong to someone,” said Richie, “That someone is not me. Please go home.” The dog barked and Richie got the distinct impression that it was casting aspersions on his intelligence. “Are you… at home?” Great. He was having a one-sided conversation with an animal.

The dog barked again, but maintained its shape and the appropriate number of teeth.

Tentatively, Richie approached, and when it didn’t attack, he inched past and opened the door. The dog strolled in as though it belonged there. “I have nothing for you,” said Richie, who barely had food enough for himself. She made a tight circle three times, then sat on the rug in front of the fireplace in the living room. “By all means, make yourself at home,” he said. “But neither of us is eating until I get some work done.” He sat at the table and used the login data from his welcome package to check the property’s security cameras: no one but him had touched the mailbox. He stared at his laptop a while longer, then pushed the top down, picked up a notepad instead, and started a letter.

_ So, 2016. Well, the election’s in two months. I want it to be over, but also, I’m sick about it. I’m sorry you still have so much more to go. What else? Brexit’s going to carry. They’re going to make the last VCR. _

Richie tapped his pen against his teeth. July had _really_ been a shit month.

_ Sorry that’s so bleak. Okay. Obama went to Cuba. That was a thing, I guess. Pokémon Go is also a thing. I think. I don’t really get it. Lemonade. (That’ll make sense next April.) To be honest, I’m just googling stuff on my phone. I’ve had a hard time keeping my head above water this year. _

_I guess you’ll have to wait a while to see if my information’s good. But it is—promise. Here’s something that’ll be easier to check: the September 7, 2015 edition of The New York Times will have football, refugees, veterans, ISIS, and an ad for purses on the front page._

_ Richie _

_ PS Do you know anyone around here that has a Pomeranian? She showed up at the cabin (“cabin”) like she owns the place. Seems too fancy for a stray in the country? _

He walked to the mailbox, stuck the note inside, and spent the next seven hours grinding out 500 words and resisting the urge to text Bill obscenities. At 6:00, he let the dog out, but instead of returning to the house when she’d finished, she followed him to the car and he resigned himself to having a grocery buddy. She was perched on the passenger seat as confidently as she’d taken charge inside when Richie passed the mailbox, hit the brakes hard—“sorry, dog!”—and pulled over. The flag was up again.

_ The dog answers to Sergeyevna. (My sister, who feeds her sometimes, calls her that.) I never found out who owns her—I think she might have gotten lost in the summer—but she seems pretty healthy and happy. If no one moved it, there might still be some kibble in the back of the hall closet. _

_ Thanks for the bad news—you couldn’t send lotto numbers? Really, though, thanks for being honest and sending stuff I could check. I’d rather have it straight. _

_Can’t help you there_, thought Richie, ruefully.

_ Sorry you’ve been having a bad year. Who are you anyway? Tell me about yourself so I can be sure you’re not a psycho killer. _

Richie turned toward the car. “Yo! Sergeyevna!”

She barked and put her little feet against the window.

Deciding to settle for cereal for another day, Richie returned again to the cabin. After putting out water and kibble (in the closet as promised!) for Sergeyevna, he poured himself a bowl, opened a beer—another superb pairing, and as it wasn’t hard liquor, he figured it technically counted as cutting back—and settled in front of his notepad again.

_ Qu’est-ce que c’est? Not a killer—just a hack comedian from Chicago. I also live alone and drink too much. Basically the total package, man-wise. _

He cringed. That had sounded funnier in his head, and not as gay as it looked on paper. He squinted at it, but left it alone. What else was he supposed to write? _I watched the man I loved for years die two months ago, two days after I remembered he existed. His blood was in my mouth and my ex-girlfriend used my breakdown to flog her jewellery line. _Yeah, that'd totally work.

_ Supposedly I am out here writing at last. Personally, I think drinking bleach would be easier, but I’ve got friends that’ll kick my ass if I don’t try, so here we are, I guess. I found the kibble—thanks! Sergeyevna noshed like a champ and is now conked out on the rug. What about you? Got a name? _

He put the letter in the box when he stumbled out with Sergeyevna out before bed.

***

The next day, he ignored a call from Maggie. He was mildly hungover, he was on holiday; he was trying to work; he was allowed.

Unfortunately, she called back. Twice. On the third call and as with Jenny, against his better judgement, he answered. “Hi, Mom,” he said, with feigned cheerfulness. “I’m right in the middle of something.”

“Richard, do you think I’m a fool?”

Richie grimaced and resisted the urge to hang up.

“I’ve been worried about you,” said Maggie. “I’m glad you let me know how you were doing.”

“I was travelling, Mom,” said Richie, wearied already. “I met some friends back in Derry.”

“Derry?” said Maggie, chuckling incredulously. “That backwater? Why?”

“We lived there for, like, 20 years,” said Richie, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s not like it was _my_ top choice.”

“One more thing you can blame on your mother, is it? Your mother who was building a career and raising a child when women still weren’t allowed to apply for credit—”

“I _know_, Mom,” said Richie. He took a deep breath. “I know. Can we not fight, please? I don’t want to fight.” Maggie Morris-Tozier had worked her way up at the _Bangor Daily News_, commuting back and forth every day, until she hit the glass ceiling, and had then applied on—and been rejected from—better positions for years until she landed an editorial job at the _Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, _convincing Wentworth to transplant his practice when Richie graduated from high school. Richie wanted to admire her gumption, her accomplishments—to recognize the uphill battle she’d fought as a woman in a “man’s field”—but he’d always felt they were trying to communicate from too far away, like that Monty Python bit, _Wuthering Heights _in semaphore. How could a college drop-out doing late-night open-mics explain his ongoing failure to succeed to someone who had never taken no for an answer in her life? Even once his career had started to take-off, ghostwriting aside, it had never been enough to impress her.

“It’s not like I want to fight.”

“I had a tough summer. I needed some time to myself.” He scrambled for something to say, something to get her off his back. “Jenny and I broke up.”

That did the trick: Maggie gasped. “She never said when she called! I’m so sorry.”

“Me too,” said Richie, slipping into his old role as heterosexual wastrel. “I’ve been trying to figure stuff out.” That, at least, was true. He would have thought, though, that even if she wasn’t active on the Internet, she’d have kept her hand in the newspaper game enough that his August debacle would have reached her somehow. Apparently not. Well, she’d always had bitter contempt for “the gutter press” and never having been one to brag about him, she didn’t keep up with his activities.

“I know we don’t always see eye-to-eye,” she said.

_Don’t ever_, thought Richie.

“But I love you, dear.”

Richie sighed. “I know that, Mom. I love you, too.”

**Thoughts on Sue — Dietary restrictions — Standing there with my dick out — Teenagers  
_Eddie_**

Late Friday afternoon, Eddie checked Neil’s security cameras, including the solar-powered extension by the mailbox, wincing to recall how foolish he’d thought the contraption when Neil introduced it. No one, not the farm kids and not anyone else, had gone near the mailbox. Rather than distress him, though, the development intrigued him, presenting both an interesting puzzle and a welcome distraction from his family. Returning from the mailbox that morning, he’d stumbled into a shouting match between Mackenzie, who’d fed Sergeyevna when the dog showed up at the door, and Neil, who disliked animals and hated his children contradicting him, as well as an argument of his own with Myra about allergies, which Neil felt compelled to comment on, of course. After that had gone on long enough, he excused himself to the bathroom, screamed into a towel, then apologetically made Myra a cup of tea, after which he took Ellen’s grocery list into town.

He parked at the end of the lane, nervously looking over his shoulder, thinking of the camera. Not that he was doing anything wrong. “There won’t be anything there,” he told himself. “You’re being ridiculous.”

But there was a note and Eddie sat in his car, reading it and smiling in spite of himself. He resolved to check the _Times _on Monday and after finishing at the grocery store, stopped at a café to write a note about Sergeyevna before heading back, tunelessly whistling Talking Heads as he drove.

***

When he went for his run on Saturday morning, Mackenzie was sitting on an upturned log around the side of the house in jeans and a hoodie with her hair in a mussed cloud around her head, smoking a joint.

“Morning,” he said.

She jumped, coughing. “You scared me. You won’t say anything, will you?”

Eddie made a face at her. “Don’t need to.” He pointed. “You’re smoking under an open window. That’s the loft up there, right? Where your parents sleep?”

“Shit!”

“Maybe go further afield next time.” He shook his head—he loved that kid—and kept running. He didn’t often think of his childhood, preferred it that way, but he briefly wondered if he’d been like Mack when he was young. Not the pot, not with his lungs, but the fumbling, bull-headed rebellion. He shook his head again—the past was the past; best to keep it that way—and at the end of the lane, paused to collect a new note. He could hardly believe it. The experience was surreal.

When he got back, he balanced against the wall in the entryway, unlacing his shoes, and heard raised voices in the living room. Myra came out then, but in response to the inquisitive lift of his eyebrows only shook her head before going upstairs. By the sound of things, Neil was working up a good head of steam. Eddie crept toward the kitchen, though he stopped at the living room when he spotted Mackenzie on the sofa, her hands pulled into her bunched-up sleeves.

“It’s not a big deal,” she said, mumbling, shoulders hunched

“Are you kidding me?” said Neil, looming over her. “I didn’t work all my life so that you could throw away yours on drugs. Your grades aren’t half where they’re supposed to be, you won’t work with a tutor. You think private school is cheap, what with property taxes and god knows what else going up every year? You lack drive, Mackenzie. You don’t take care of yourself. And now smoking up?”

Eddie knew it wouldn’t help Mackenzie to intervene—Neil would really blow his stack, then—but he hated it when they fought. They were too hard on her.

“I agreed to let you postpone your SATs to your senior year, but you—don’t roll your eyes at me.”

“You never yell at Chris.”

“Your brother is a grown man. When he was your age…”

Eddie went to the kitchen, poured two glasses of water, and a few minutes later, after things had quieted down, peered into the living room to find that Neil had grumbled off and Mackenzie sat alone. He handed her a glass, which she accepted, and called, nominally addressing everyone in range but really only speaking to the kid, “I’ve got to run into town. Anybody want to come?”

Mackenzie looked up from the sofa. “Can I drive?”

“No,” said Eddie.

When they were both buckled into the Eddie’s car, he added, “You may be a great driver, Mack, but I’m still not going to let you drive high.”

“I didn’t think of that,” she said, sheepish.

“You don’t, do you?”

“No, that’s stupid.”

“It is,” said Eddie, pointedly. “And I’m assuming, of course, that pot is your only vice, Mack.”

“Yeah,” said Mackenzie, contemptuously, as though it beggared belief that he would speculate otherwise.

“Because if you’re binge drinking or shooting heroine, or what’s it called, Juul? Juuling? I won’t be so open-minded.”

“Never say ‘juuling’ again. It sounds ridiculous when you say it. And no, I’m not.”

“Good. Have you had breakfast yet?”

Mackenzie perked up, smile brightening her face as she straightened in her seat. “Can we go to Laura’s?”

Laura’s was a local diner. Mackenzie ordered hot chocolate and pancakes, both with whipped cream, plus a side of bacon, and Eddie ordered green tea and granola, and that only after Denise, the diner’s long-suffering server, ran through the ingredients and confirmed that they offered soy yoghurt.

“Missed you, Eddie,” she said. She slapped his shoulder and took their menus.

“Don’t you get embarrassed doing that at every restaurant?” Mackenzie had sunk into the corner of the booth while Eddie grilled Denise.

“No—why would I?” Eddie squirted hand sanitizer into his palm. “You know what’s embarrassing? Killing one of your paying customers with an allergen.” Denise returned with their drinks. “Oh, thank you.”

“Dad wouldn’t give you such a hard time if you chilled out a bit.”

“He wouldn’t give _you_ such a hard time if you didn’t smoke pot under his bedroom window.” He wondered if Mackenzie had been _trying_ to piss Neil off. Maybe subconsciously. Maybe consciously.

“Humph.” Mackenzie slurped the whipped cream off her hot chocolate.

God, Eddie missed dairy. “I’ve never been your father’s favourite person, but that’s not something you need to worry about.”

Mackenzie stirred her drink conspicuously, as though the act demanded her full attention. “I don’t think I am either,” she said, and lifted her cup to her mouth.

_Jesus_, thought Eddie_._ _The poor kid. _“I think he just doesn’t get you sometimes.” Myra’s parents had raised her and Christopher to adulthood, then been shocked—“blessed,” Ellen said—by a baby born the same year Christopher left for college. “But that’s on him, not on you. You’re not doing anything wrong, okay? Although it wouldn’t be the worst thing if you smoked less.”

“I guess.”

Denise brought their food and Eddie thanked her, then told Mackenzie, “And your sister and I like you plenty.”

“I know,” said Mackenzie. “But it’s not the same.”

“I mean it—you’re likeable, you’re funny, you’re kind, you’re smart—”

“My grades suck.”

“Grades are not a universal metric for intelligence—you named a dog after Chekhov, for god’s sake. When you were ten, you were visiting us with a bag of stuffed animals in one hand and an Ursula Le Guin collection in the other. But if it’s math or science, you come to me, okay?” She’d been bringing her math homework to him for help since elementary school. Eddie thought about what he’d put himself through for his mother’s sake and added, “Plus, you don’t have any allergies, so eat your pancakes.”

Mackenzie sniffed, but laughed. Then, over a mouthful of food, she said, “What if…”

Eddie looked up when she fell silent. Mackenzie was pale and her fork shook in her hand. “What if what? Are you getting sick?”

“What if I wasn’t str— if I liked girls?” The words came in a rush and her eyes were wet.

“Then you’re my sister who likes girls,” said Eddie. Internally, sirens were going off: Neil would absolutely lose his shit. Like pull-Mackenzie-out-of-school lose his shit. “That’d be okay, wouldn’t it?”

“You’re not mad?”

“No way—not one little bit.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m straight,” she said. “I was just thinking about it. You can’t tell anybody, Eddie.”

“I won’t.”

“Not even Myra.”

“I won’t,” said Eddie, though it hurt him to say so. Myra was far more tolerant than her parents, low bar as that was, but she could be thoughtless—without meaning to, of course. She had a good heart and would never hurt anyone on purpose.

“Dad can’t know.”

Eddie shook his head. “No. But you know that’s not fair of him, right? It shouldn’t be like that.”

Mackenzie sniffed again.

Eddie caught Denise’s eye. “Can I get another hot chocolate for the lady?” To Mackenzie he said, “You can tell me anything. Any time. You know that, right?” He sighed. “Look, if I ever think you’re in danger”—he forestalled her objection with a raised hand—“_real_ danger, I’ll have to do something, okay? Even if it pisses you off. When you’re as old as me, you’ll get it. But otherwise, your business is your business. Deal?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Deal. But really, just forget it.”

***

When he and Mackenzie got back, he went upstairs to write a letter. Richie Tozier was, according to the Internet, a real person—a comedian, like Mackenzie had said—but that didn’t mean, necessarily, that _he_ was on the other end of the mailbox. Maybe Eddie was being catfished, or whatever. He didn’t _want_ to lie to Richie, or whoever it was, but he thought he should perhaps start cautiously. Maybe a fake name for himself and keep his family’s names out of it—although he’d already identified Neil—and leave the rest of it alone, so he could keep his story straight. Minimize the risk of goofing it.

_ Richie, _

_ My name’s Ted Moore. _

He groaned at that—a weak private joke, but the best he could come up with on the fly.

_ I work for a think tank in New York City. I’ve been coming here with my wife’s family for years—long weekends, Christmas, that sort of thing. Thanks for feeding Sergeyevna—my in-laws hate her, but I think she’s kind of cute. My sister wanted to keep her, but the parental units (she’s only in high school—my sister, not the dog—born the same year my wife and I started dating) said NFW. _

He couldn’t think of anything else interesting about himself, and tapped his pen against his chin, wondering what he thought he was playing at.

_ I get to Chicago for work sometimes—it’s a neat city. _

Neat? _Jesus, Kaspbrak_, he thought, _are you an eighth-grade pen pal? _But instead of crumpling the looseleaf, he kept writing.

_ When my sister was 12 or so, my wife and her came with me, and I took her to the Field Museum. She was super into that t-rex. Sue, right? _

[[Link to illustration on Tumblr](https://andloawhatsit.tumblr.com/post/612330792932261888/while-listening-to-literally-hours-of-the-rusty)]

Myra hadn’t been feeling well and had stayed in, but Eddie had blown through his meetings as quickly as possible, thinking of poor Mackenzie stuck in a hotel room, then taken her for lunch (pizza, against the wishes of both her mother and his wife) and then to the museum. He’d bought her a bag of polished stones in the gift shop and been amazed at the ease with which he’d made the kid so happy.

_ Well. That’s me. Thrilling, right? If you’re still awake, write me back. _

_ Ted _

He folded his note and stuck it in an envelope poached from the junk drawer, then picked up his phone, searched “Richie Tozier,” and scrolled through the results. “Trashmouth,” he said, testing the name in his mouth, finding it oddly familiar. Choosing videos at random, what he found was mostly dick humour, frat boy stuff, but Eddie caught himself snickering once or twice.

“What are we up to?” Myra came up behind him and rested her hand on his shoulder.

He tilted his head to brush his cheek against her fingers, then tilted the phone to show her. “YouTube,” he said. “Just some comedian.”

_So I’m standing there with my dick out_, said Richie, small and tinny on Eddie’s phone.

“Hmm,” she said, a Myra-specific sound meant to convey that she wasn’t impressed and he shouldn’t be either.

“Hang on,” he said, flicking back through the links. “This one’s funnier.”

***

Eddie was surprised by his own disappointment when there was no new letter from Richie on Sunday afternoon, because the next day was Labour Day and he and Myra would drive out after lunch. The afternoon and evening passed uneventfully and as he and Myra undressed for bed that night, he said, “Your dad and Mackenzie aren’t getting along, are they? Like, more than usual?”

“Mackenzie needs to grow up,” said Myra.

“Aw, she’s just a kid,” said Eddie, good-naturedly. “Being 17 sucks ass.”

Myra frowned at him, paused in the midst of combing her hair, and Eddie realized he’d misjudged the mood. “She’s spoiled rotten. That’s what comes of being the baby of the family. You remember, I did her star chart when she was born, so it’s not a surprise”—Eddie bit back a snide remark, but Myra noticed anyway—“Don’t make that face. She’s classic fire sign, oblivious of her impact on other people, but she still needs to grow up.” She finished with her hair, then smoothed her pillowcase and slid into bed.

“She’s growing up the normal way,” muttered Eddie, folding his laundry for the hamper. _A time traveller_, he thought. _The normal kind._

“What?”

“Nothing.” He climbed into bed beside her. Kissed her goodnight, glad when she welcomed him, and kissed her some more. They undressed each other and he thought, _Maybe this time_.

***

The front page of _The New York Times_ was just as Richie had said, and Eddie ran out Monday morning to get another note into the mailbox before he and Myra hit the road.

_ Richie, _

_ We’ll be back for Thanksgiving. Maybe I’ll hear from you? Good luck with the writing. Say hi to Sergeyevna for me. _

_ Ted _

_ PS You were right about the Times. I’m kind of freaked out, to be honest. _

_PPS I looked you up on YouTube_.

As quickly as he’d closed the door, the flag rose.

_ Talk to you in November, time-travel buddy. _

_ Richie _

**Fear and self-loathing in the Hudson Valley — Occam’s Razor — Stage fright — Patty Uris on the phone  
_Richie_**

The night after Richie received Ted’s note about the Field Museum he had a real barnburner of a nightmare, the worst yet. He was in the cavern again, the breath knocked out of him after falling from the deadlights and Eddie leaned over him, jubilant and proud, and Richie had reached up and kissed him deeply, his tongue in Eddie’s mouth, and tasted blood, because Eddie had been stabbed through the chest. Richie woke crying and hard and repulsed by himself. _Tozier, you loser, _he thought. _Why didn’t you push him out of the way?_

He didn’t get much done the next day—made it to the sofa and managed the energy to let the dog out and change her food and water, but that was it. Not feeling especially funny, he compromised with himself and made a list of things he _could_ conceivably write about. It was not long. He had to try, though. If he couldn’t do that, what was he worth?

When he next made it to the mailbox, he found Ted’s farewell and replied on impulse, the desire to tie himself to _something_. By November, he could have gotten somewhere with fixing his life. Definitely. For sure.

***

That night, he dreamed that Stan was with them underground that Richie tried to call out to him, warn him, but his voice failed and the clown finished what It started in ‘89.

He called Ben after his breathing settled, even though it was the middle of the night.

Ben answered, stand-up guy that he was. “Richie? You okay?”

Richie wanted to say no. Instead, he said, “Do you have Patty Uris’s number?”

“Bev does,” said Ben. “Do you need it at three o’clock in the morning?”

“I had a—” Richie remembered that he hadn’t told the others about his dreams. “I was thinking about Stan.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Richie thought about what to say, knowing that Ben would sit in silence with him. “What do you do when you have to work on your designs but you don’t want to?”

“Hit The Red Wheel for a beer or three, usually,” said Ben. “At least I used to.”

Caught off guard, Richie laughed. “Fuck, Ben. I’m dying out here.”

“It feels that way,” said Ben. “And then it doesn’t. When you’re making something new. You don’t have to like it and it doesn’t have to be good, not right away. You just have to do it. And keep doing it.”

“I miss them,” said Richie, because it was easier to talk about Eddie-and-Stan, their friends, then Eddie, his best friend.

“Me too,” said Ben. “Hang on. I’ll get you Patty’s number.” Then a muffled, “I’m talking to Richie, hon. No, he’s okay. Can you get me Patty Uris’s number?” To Richie, he said, “How’s the cabin?”

“You know it’s actually pretty nice,” said Richie, “Good Wi-Fi.”

“Wi-Fi’s a productivity killer,” said Ben.

“You shush,” said Richie. They talked a while longer and afterward, he felt better able to sleep again. Sergeyevna had also joined him on the bed, which helped.

***

Over the next few days, he kept dreaming, but also managed to write some terrible bits and buy a carrier for Sergeyevna, so she could come home with him. The vet in Rosendale had said he’d put a call out on Facebook, but if no one claimed her, a little dog like that would be better off with a single owner than roaming rural roads. Suddenly a dog-parent, apparently, Richie continued to drink slightly (slightly) less than usual, for which he congratulated himself, and booked himself back for Thanksgiving.

They had a deal for New Year’s, so he booked that too.

***

Back in Chicago, strangers had more or less stopped hanging out in front of his building, and his utter failure to engage with journalists, social media, or anyone else appeared to have finally sent the message. He figured, and Pete grudgingly agreed, that so long as he kept a low profile until he had something good to report, he should be all right. By early October, he had written some stuff that _didn’t_ make him want to scream on rereading and had agreed to be part of a mini-festival on Halloween—_Trick or Treat in Chicago_ at a local club. With a secret line-up, no one would know in advance that he’d be there, and that suited him fine.

More than he preferred to admit to himself, he thought about Ted’s note. _I looked you up on YouTube. _Okay, and? Not to mention that while the life he’d had meant that a time-travelling mailbox was not beyond the realm of possibility, what would a normal guy like Ted think? He had wondered if some wannabe gossip journalist was catfishing him or something, but if he accepted the magic mailbox premise, the assumption of malicious intent in his penpal would needlessly overcomplicate things. Occam’s Razor. Right? He liked the idea that Ted had so little notion of who he was. He liked the idea of not being known.

***

Mike came through town near the end of the month and crashed at Richie’s place, which meant intending to clean up for two weeks prior and the panicked hiring of a cleaning service two days before. He’d been surprised, then ashamed, when the service carted away his recycling: he knew he’d been drinking hard, but yikes. Being as capable of cooking as he was of housework, on Mike’s first night he ordered ramen and tipped the noodle girl generously, grateful at least to be better dressed and more sober than the last time he’d seen her. Mike talked about his road trip and the sights along the way, and Richie actually felt himself unclench a bit. He looked at Mike’s photos of the Keys and showed him pictures of Sergeyevna, and it felt good to talk to someone in person.

“You talk to Bill lately?” said Mike, over coffee the next morning. “I’m thinking I’ll get out there by Thanksgiving. They’ve invited me to stay for a bit.”

“Nice,” said Richie. “Leave the Midwest behind and soak up some sun.” He sipped his coffee. “We talk on the phone once a week or so. I think he feels he’s got to check on me—it’s the boy scout in him.”

“It’s the big brother in him,” said Mike. He polished an apple on his shirt—Richie was glad he’d remembered to include produce in his grocery order (_Richie Tozier, one; malnutrition… well, malnutrition probably still had the lead_)—and took a bite.

“You’re probably right.” He took an apple of his own, for the vitamins “I’m proud of him, though. I mean, what do I know about marriage, but he wants his to work. He told Audra that he kissed Bev, even.”

Mike choked on a piece of apple.

“I know!” said Richie. “I wouldn’t have.” He got up to pour Mike a glass of water. “But my girlfriend dumped me, so the proof’s in that pudding.”

Mike cleared his throat. “Kissed Bev?” he said. “When we were kids?”

“No, like four months ago,” said Richie, and passed him the glass. “When we were all in Derry. I made fun of them so hard. Where were you?”

“I don’t know.” Mike coughed and cleared his throat again, then took a swig of water. “Must have missed it. To be fair, there was a lot going on.”

“True that.”

Mike took another bite, then lowered his free hand to call the dog, who trotted over for an ear-rub. “She’s Sergeyevna like Chekhov?” he said.

“Like _Star Trek_?” said Richie. He figured he’d shot off his mouth again: Mike and Bill were super tight, so Mike probably knew more about Bill’s marriage than Richie did and was having to play dumb. Best to let Mike change the subject, he supposed.

“No, the Russian.”

“He _was_ Russian; his name was Pavel.”

“_Anton _Chekhov,” said Mike, fondly. “He wrote ‘The Lady with the Dog?’ The character Anna Sergeyevna has a Pomeranian?”

“I guess,” said Richie, vaguely recalling the story from college; clearly, it had not made a lasting impression. “I didn’t name her, though.” Reluctant to explain Sergeyevna’s origins, though, he steered the conversation elsewhere. “So how long are you going to be in town?”

Mike chuckled. “Have I worn out my welcome already?”

“Never,” said Richie, intently. “You have the key to the city for life.” He concentrated on his apple. “I got a little show on Hallowe’en. I could get you a ticket, if you want.” He was irritated with the plaintive tone in his voice, the plaintive look he knew that his expression held.

“Rich, I’d love that,” said Mike, with one of his megawatt smiles. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” said Richie. He stood and grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. “It might be shit.”

“I doubt that,” said Mike. “Where are you going?”

Richie, who had been moving without thinking, realized what he was doing and said, “Out for a smoke?”

“When did you start smoking?”

“Smoking again,” said Richie, deflecting. “And you can blame Bev. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Nah, I’ll come with you,” said Mike. “If you don’t mind.”

“Sure.”

“Get some ‘fresh air.'" He arched his eyebrows, teasing.

“Okay, _Doctor_ Hanlon.”

Halloween landed and before he knew it, he was on stage for the first time since July. He took a deep breath and gave himself over to it. “As some of you may know, I came out a couple months ago,” he said. _Don’t puke. _“And I would love to tell you about my incredible new life with my new man, but this is me we’re talking about so you’re going to learn more than you ever wanted to know about my new dog…”

The chucks landed and he got a cheerful write-up (well, a sentence) in the _Tribune _online the next day. Plus, he didn’t get drunk after, which was probably a first for him as a performer. All in all, it was enough to convince him to leave the Sergeyevna bits in his bigger piece, such as it was, and Mike had offered feedback, too.

“You don’t have to self-immolate,” he’d said in the elevator back at Richie’s building. “You can’t have more shows if you do that.”

“You have to admit,” said Richie, breezily, “that my sex life is a rich vein for comedy.”

“You make it funny, because you’re good at your job.”

Heat rose in Richie’s face.

“But…” Mike rubbed his chin. “I wouldn’t want the laughs you get to, you know, _validate _you feeling bad about yourself.” He hadn’t referenced the part about being a sad-sack single specifically, though Richie figured that was what he meant. “Sorry. Too heavy?”

“No, no,” said Richie, rubbing the back of his neck, considering. “It’s something to think about. Thanks for being honest with me. There’s a balance there, to make self-deprecation work, but it’s fussy.”

***

He still hadn’t called Patty, though, so after Mike’s departure and the shit-show that was early November, he finally cowboyed up.

“Patty Uris speaking.”

“Hi.” He scrambled for words, but all he came up with was, “This is Richie Tozier.”

“Sorry, do I know you?”

“Not really,” said Richie. “I was friends with Stanley, when we were growing up. I think you’ve talked to our friend Bev before?” _Smooth, Tozier, reminding her of that call._ “I know this is out of the clear blue sky, but I wanted to tell you, uh, oh god—I just wanted to tell you how much his friendship meant to me.”

“Thank you,” said Patty. “Oh, _Richie_.” Her tone changed—less guarded, friendlier. “Stan mentioned you a few times, actually.”

“He did?” said Richie, shocked.

“You were at his bar mitzvah, right?” said Patty. “That was you?”

“It was,” said Richie. He couldn’t believe that Stan had remembered him. No wonder he’d been terrified—he’d known all along. _Oh, Stan the Man._ “God, he crushed it. I stood up and clapped. My mom was so mad at me.” Maggie had left him two voicemails since Labour Day, but he hadn’t called back. “We had a rough time when we were kids.” He wasn’t sure how much Stan would have told Patty. He wouldn’t have confided in Jenny, even if he had remembered, but something told him the Urises hadn’t been like that. “But he was a really good friend to me.” His voice faltered. He’d never come out to anyone, of course, but the closest he’d got was with Stan, who’d found him drinking behind the gym on prom night, feeling sorry for himself because Eddie was occupied with Heather Kelly from the debate team and all the rest of them had dates too, while Richie hadn’t asked anyone. Stan, though, had left his with her friends to take away Richie’s bottle and sit with him a while, then snuck him back inside, somehow managing to get him past the principal, who was guarding the evening against impaired teens like a Doberman outside a junkyard.

“He didn’t talk too much about his childhood,” said Patty. “Besides a few stories, a few names. The good stuff, you know.”

“Derry was not the most nurturing place,” said Richie. “But we got what we got. We called ourselves the Losers Club.”

“What?” said Patty, sharply.

“It was a joke,” said Richie. “We were always getting kicked around. You know, not the cool kids.”

“The Losers?” said Patty. “You called yourself the Losers?”

“In a fun way,” said Richie.

“I wish I’d known that he was hurting,” said Patty. She was crying, then. “I wish—”

“Hell, I’m sorry. I wanted to—”

“No, it’s okay.” Patty wrestled her voice under control. “I’m glad you called. I’m on my way out now, but will you—would you call me again? Next week?”

“Sure. I’d like that.” Richie was surprised to find that he actually would.

When he hung up, Sergeyevna was asleep on her side, legs stuck out, and since that was possibly the cutest thing he’d ever seen, he sent a picture to the other Losers before making dinner. Kraft Dinner, but still.

***

Everyone was making holiday plans. Mike had made it to California, so he was having Thanksgiving with Bill and Audra, and though Ben and Bev invited Richie to join them in Nebraska, he begged off. He was headed for Rosendale, and besides, they’d all agreed to rendezvous there for Christmas anyway. He had a healthy reserve and was grateful for it, but after his early years as a performer he didn’t like the feeling of not working. No material meant no dates meant no press meant _career freefall_. He needed to _write._ He was tempted to call his old ghostwriter, to tell him that he got it now, he understood how hard it was, but he knew that Andrew was busy. He’d done well out of Richie’s implosion—more power to him—and was writing for TV, according to Pete.

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Richie met with Pete, promising to get him some pages by the following week, loaded his car (Sergeyevna had hated flying, so planes were out), and two days later (they took it easy), he was back at the cabin. Sergeyevna rolled happily on the wet deck while he fumbled with the key box and when he stepped across the threshold, he felt relief—his pulse ran steadily, his breaths came easily, and he felt shielded from observation. Because he’d goofed his scheduling, he decided to wait a couple days before writing to Ted, rather than come on too strong. Not that he was “coming on,” per se. Not at all.

**Hell’s half-acre — Eddie’s energies — The thing with feathers — Three Mile Island, part two — Cultural Catholicism — Thoughts on time travel — Freaks on the Internet  
_Eddie_**

Thanksgiving, for Eddie, meant spending the day proper with his mother in Long Branch, where she’d lived since he started college, followed by a long weekend with the Moores out in Rosendale, which that year came with the added bonus of Christopher’s new girlfriend, a mystery no longer but recently snatched from the cradle as far as Eddie could tell. He had tried a few times before to convince Myra that a holiday away could be nice to try, but she preferred her traditions, which meant, with Christmas thrown into the mix, extra days off and driving all over hell’s half-acre multiple times a year.

It did not occur to him until Thanksgiving proper, however, that if he got a letter from Richie before he and Myra arrived, it might land in the Moores’ hands instead.

“Eddie-bear?”

“What?” Yanked from his speculation to his mother’s dining room table, he found Myra and Sonia staring at him expectantly.

“Pardon,” Sonia prompted.

“Pardon,” said Eddie.

“I was saying you looked a hundred miles away,” she said. “You make me worry working such a stressful job.”

“Stress can do terrible things to your brain chemistry,” said Myra. “I’ve been telling Eddie that his energies seem very misaligned lately.”

Eddie shot his wife a look. He’d asked her more than once not to rile Sonia up.

His mother shifted in her chair, alarmed. “Do you think so, Myra? That’s not good.” She reached across the table to squeeze his hand. “I’m so glad you have someone to take care of you, Eddie-bear. I couldn’t hand the job over to just anyone, you know.”

Eddie rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “Mom, I am 39 years old.”

“Pardon me for caring about you. I won’t be around forever, you know.”

She and Myra, who got on well—Sonia refused invitations to join the Moores, because she “wanted Eddie to herself,” but Myra had always been the exception—fell into a conversation about crystals into which Eddie could not have broken if he tried. Obsidian, Myra was saying, was good for emotional blockages. God, was she still on about that? Tuning out, Eddie ate his meal and thought about time travel. Which, to be fair, was almost as hand-wavy as crystals, except that he had physical evidence. Maybe. Richie had been right about _The New York Times_, and while that wasn’t necessarily iron-clad proof, it had got Eddie thinking. He had joked about lotto numbers, but it wasn’t opportunities for gain that concerned him. He wanted to know how it worked. He wanted to know his role in it all. If the past could be interacted with, could it be changed, or was it set? What were the risks involved?

Myra set her wrist to his forehead, again startling Eddie out of his thoughts. “How are you feeling? You’re running rather warm.”

“I thought he looked peaky,” said Sonia, pushing her plate away.

“I’m fine, both of you,” said Eddie, exasperated but still trying to soothe them both. “Don’t worry about it.”

Eddie never slept well in his mother’s house and he always felt guilty for the relief that washed over him when he left, but he would have taken that guilt over the oppressive weight of her cluttered home any day. When he and Myra set out the next morning, later than he’d intended, because Sonia wanted him to have a proper breakfast and could he check the gutters before he left, and he ought to have some coffee before he hit the road, it was good for his lungs, and was he taking his vitamins, and was he rested enough to drive, maybe he was coming down with something, and so on, he felt like he was shedding his skin.

“Something wrong, Eddie?” said Myra, sipping from her travel mug in the passenger seat beside him. She had never learned to drive.

“I’m fine,” said Eddie. “Looking forward to a long weekend.” Some jackass cut him off, then, and he laid on the horn, shaking off his unease.

***

They got in all right, though Eddie was bagged, but something was off. Something that he couldn’t put his finger on. The Moores didn’t seemed to have nabbed any letters, but that meant there weren’t any to nab, while Christopher was nauseating, his new girlfriend sweet but dim, and Mackenzie uncharacteristically prickly, which had Eddie worrying about her. _Chronic users of cannabis can experience irritability and anxiety_, said his brain, unhelpfully and on repeat. On top of which, Myra fussed over him to a degree that outstripped even her usual, worrying about allergens in Ellen’s new laundry detergent and whether “that dirty little dog” carried disease. It was evening, almost dinner-time, before he managed to get her alone.

“Myra, _what _is the matter? You’ve been all over me.”

She wrung her hands. “Eddie—”

“Do _not_ say my energies, I swear to god.”

“But I’m worried that something is going to happen to you.”

Eddie grabbed her fussing hands, held them. “I am fine. You know that. Please be rational.” That had been a stupid thing to say; he’d hurt her feelings. “What, specifically, are you worried about?”

“I bought a pregnancy test on Wednesday,” she said. “Before we drove out to your mother’s.”

Eddie goggled at her. He knew better than to hope, but he couldn’t help the scenario taking shape in his imagination, finding a good doctor, the _best_ doctor, converting the office, building furniture… _A child, a child._ “Do you mean…”

She shook her head, blinking rapidly. “Nope,” she said, and her breath hitched.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Eddie was crushed, like some hulking bully had punched him in the stomach, but he put his arms around her. She was stiff and unhappy. “Here’s an idea. What if we had Christmas by ourselves this year, you and me?”

“Alone?”

He nodded.

“Eddie, I—”

“DINNER IN TEN,” Mackenzie bellowed from downstairs.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said, and pushed past him.

Still disconcerted by their conversation, the adrenaline rush of hope and the freefall afterward, Eddie dug out an apron and helped Ellen, flustered, her grey hair up in a tight bun, and Mackenzie, still cranky, serve dinner. He was in the kitchen, running his scorched thumb—courtesy of a casserole dish fresh from the oven—under cold water when Neil came in, looking for the corkscrew.

“It’s on the table, dear,” said Ellen. She pulled a pin from her hair, then put it back in. “Mackenzie, I asked you to put on a skirt for dinner.”

“I didn’t pack any.”

“I brought that nice wool one I got you last Easter and your good stockings. They’re in my room.”

“You went in my room?”

“In _my_ house,” said Neil.

“Nobody else is dressing up,” said Mackenzie.

“Nobody else is wearing the same ratty jeans and sweatshirt they’ve worn for the last three days,” said Ellen. “You could make an effort. Would it kill you to put your hair up?”

“Yes.”

Neil continued rummaging the drawers, while Ellen made a noise of mild distress but said nothing. “You always hide it from me. Listen to your mother, Mackenzie.” He put his hand on the girl’s back.

“I don’t want to change,” she said, agitated. “Dad, stop it.”

But Neil followed her when she ducked away, whispering, “And unmentionables on, please—I’ve told you before,” and Eddie heard, although a small and cowardly part of him wished he hadn’t. Mackenzie stomped out.

“It’s on the—”

“I don’t know why we can’t keep it in the same damn place. Everything has a place.”

A headache drummed against Eddie’s temples. He rubbed his forehead, felt his own flush, and wondered if he _was_ coming down with something. An aneurysm, maybe. “It’s on the table,” he said loudly.

“Why didn’t you say something?” said Neil, and grumbled back to the dining room.

Eddie, who hadn’t stood up for Mackenzie, was asking himself the same thing.

Ellen continued pouring off the gravy.

Her patience made Eddie livid, but he dried his hand on his apron, then took the gravy boat and brought it to the table.

“Why, Ted, don’t you look sweet,” said Christopher, looking to Neil the way a puppy looked its owner for affirmation.

“Thank you,” said Eddie, and took his seat beside Myra, leaving his apron on simply to be irritating. He wondered what he’d do if Ellen asked him to change. No contest—he’d fold, obviously. Neil led grace, and after that was done, Eddie found Christopher’s girlfriend across the table and had a proper look at her. Danielle was smartly dressed and bright-eyed, with straightened hair pulled back in a high ponytail and face lightly made up. She looked like she was interviewing for an unpaid internship at an art gallery and couldn’t have been that much older than Mackenzie, while Christopher was casually dressed—looked like jeans were fine for him—and in his mid-thirties. _Jesus_, Eddie thought, but said, “Having fun yet?”

She nodded, smiling shyly at him. “It’s such a nice house, Ted,”

“Eddie, please. But yeah, it is. Do you like hiking at all? You could get Christopher to take you to the Mohonk Preserve.”

“Are you outdoorsy?” she said, tilting her head in surprise. “You’re not like Chris said at all.”

Christopher snorted.

“Chris is more traditionally masculine than my Eddie,” said Myra. She nudged Eddie’s elbow to offer him a roll.

“Thank you for your support, sweetheart,” said Eddie, pointedly, trying to tell her to lay off using only his eyebrows.

“What?” said Myra. “They’re gluten-free.”

Danielle blushed. “I meant—” She looked with panic to Christopher for help, but he was preoccupied with the sweet potato casserole.

Eddie cut her a break. “So where’d you two meet?”

“Playschool?” muttered Mackenzie. “Ow!” One of her siblings must have kicked her.

“Bible study at our church,” said Danielle. “Chris wanted to impress my dad.”

“Not only him,” said Christopher.

Eddie wanted to bundle the child into his car and take her home to her mother.

“When did you start going to church again, Chris?” said Mackenzie. “_Ow_!”

“Why don’t you ask Myra and Eddie why they don’t?” said Christopher.

“You leave Myra alone,” said Neil, from the head of the table.

“Oh, sure, defend _Myra_,” said Mackenzie.

By then, Eddie—grateful to be excluded from the conversation, if not from Neil’s defence—had cleaned his plate.

Once they’d more or less caught up with him, Neil said, “More wine, Danielle?”

“No thanks,” she said. She hadn’t had any, though in her place Eddie would have been nervous-drunk by then. “I shouldn’t.”

“Oh, are you not old enough?” said Mackenzie, sweetly.

“Mackenzie, that’s _enough_,” Ellen said, in a rare outburst. Again, she took a pin out of her hair, then put it back.

Eddie was getting more anxious by the second. He did not believe in mystical energies, auras, or premonitions, but a terrible feeling washed over him all the same. He finished his drink. “I will.”

“Ladies first,” said Neil, sly, and passed the bottle.

Eddie ignored that and topped up his glass.

“How old are you, exactly?” said Mackenzie.

“Twenty-two,” said Danielle, guileless. “And a half.”

“And a half,” Mackenzie repeated. “Hmm.”

Danielle looked to Christopher for help again; he grinned at her, picked up her hand, and kissed her knuckles.

_Here it comes_, thought Eddie.

“Mom and Dad, I—_we_—have a surprise for you,” said Christopher. “I asked Danielle to marry me and…” Suddenly, like a fall from a cliff, he looked nervous. “We’re having a baby.”

The silence was immediate and total. Eddie’s stomach roiled. Christopher was grinning still, but with anxious rigidity, Neil and Ellen looked like they’d each been hit between the eyes, Mackenzie’s mouth hung open, and Myra… Eddie groped for her hand, but she wouldn’t take it.

“I guess Danielle and I don’t have to share a room anymore,” said Mackenzie, arching one eyebrow.

Ellen gasped. If she wore pearls, she would have clutched them. “Mackenzie Elizabeth, you apologize!”

“Mackenzie, will you shut up?” said Myra at the same time.

Eddie took a long drink, the wine sharp on his tongue.

“Apologize for what? Saying it? He’s the one that did it. You’re all insane—not you, Eddie.”

He smothered a nervous laugh with a fist against his mouth, but Myra shoved back her chair and ran from the room, and when he tried to follow, she closed the bedroom door in his face. “Myra, come on—let me in.” The door was locked—nothing but one of those simple doorknob pieces, but Eddie wouldn’t force it. “Myra, please.”

Voices floated up the stairs. “Ignore Mackenzie” and “This is wonderful news—I was 19 when Neil and I got married” and “I’m not going to apologize. Why are you encouraging this?”

The front door slammed and Eddie jumped. By the time he made it back to the dining room, both Neil and Mackenzie were gone and Christopher had his arm around Danielle’s shoulders, with Ellen on her other side, patting her hand.

“Let’s go for a walk out back?” said Christopher.

_That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all night_, thought Eddie.

“We’ll be back in a bit, Mom.” Christopher shepherded his girlfriend—his fiancée, Eddie supposed—out of the room, and Eddie retrieved his glass and refreshed Ellen’s.

“Not how you wanted to hear you’d be a grandma, I bet.” He drank. “I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault, dear,” said Ellen.

Eddie thought about Myra sitting alone in the bathroom at home, test in hand, devastated, and wasn’t so sure.

“And Christopher! I know times have changed, but my goodness. Marriage is a serious proposition. We don’t divorce in this family.”

At a loss for words, he nodded.

Ellen brushed crumbs from the tablecloth. “At least they’re making it right.”

Eddie hated that expression, that pious fronting. He and Myra had, after much discussion, slept together before they got married, but she had struggled all the while with her shame. Eddie, who had breezed through his sacraments thanks to his ability—honed under Sonia’s roof—to feign both attention and remorse while actually zoned out completely, had never felt the same, but he knew it was hard on her. When he first spent a long weekend with the Moores, shortly after he’d proposed, Neil had made him bunk with Christopher.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into Mackenzie either,” said Ellen. “She was such a cheerful child, lots of friends, and then my happy girl disappeared. _Teenagers_.”

Eddie didn’t know how to tell his mother-in-law that her daughter needed more love than her parents were willing to give her. “She’s a kid,” he said, painfully aware of how useless the words were.

“Would you go after her? She listens to you. I’ll go see how her father’s doing, and poor Danielle, once they get back.”

“Sure,” said Eddie, but thought, _Danielle has her own parents_. _What about your daughters? _At least Neil hadn’t gone after her: that was a recipe for disaster. “Give me one sec.” He pulled out his phone and texted Myra. <Mackenzie took off—I’m going to go get her, but I’ll be back asap. ♥>

She’d made good time: he caught up with her at the end of the lane, by the mailbox, where she stood at the edge of the road, shivering. “What’re you going to do? Hitchhike?” She hadn’t even grabbed her coat. Eddie, who had, held it out to her.

“She’s, like, five years older than me.” Mackenzie took the coat and put it on, shivering still.

“I know.”

“And they all love her.”

“They’re being polite—we just met her. We don’t know if we love her or not.” He pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket. “Here.”

She took them. “Chris’s being such an idiot. But no one will ever say anything to him—he just fucks around, but no, everything he does is perfect. Mom took my baby picture down to put up his college photo. Did you know that? I bet your mom would never do that.”

“My mom’s got her own issues,” said Eddie.

Mackenzie was still shivering. “Shit, I put a run in these tights. These cost me forty-five dollars.” She started to cry.

Eddie took a miniature pack of tissue out of his other pocket and handed that over as well.

“They will love her, though. You know I don’t care if they’re not married, right? Who gives a crap? But Mom and Dad should, and they _won’t_. Because she’s pretty and she’s thin and she goes to bible study, and if I told them about me being… you know, because I am, they wouldn’t—wouldn’t—” She couldn’t speak for crying.

“Aw, Mack, come here.” He wrapped her in a big hug. She was so young. He started to say, “Maybe it’d be the same, maybe they wouldn’t be as upset as you think,” but stopped himself. Neil and Ellen’s mildly prodigal son settling down with a nice Catholic girl, even with pregnancy as a driver, was not the same as Neil and Ellen’s little girl coming out and Eddie would have laid down in traffic before he put Mackenzie at risk. It was bad enough that Neil policed her clothes. Instead, he said, “Your parents’ values are important to them, but that doesn’t mean they have to be important to you. It’s the same with me and my mom. I’m glad you think about what matters to you. I know…” He faltered, not wanting to embarrass or frighten her. “I know they want you to dress and… _be_ a certain way, but that doesn’t make them right.” At Mackenzie’s age, he’d acquiesced to his mother time and again because it was easier than fighting with her. He had made his peace with it, but Mackenzie… She was just a kid. She didn’t deserve that.

She shrugged.

“And thank fuck you’re my sister,” he added. “If all I had was Christopher, I’d have snapped years ago.”

She laughed, wetly. “He should have known he’d hurt Myra’s feelings. And your feelings.”

Eddie shrugged back. It had been a slap to him, too, to hear Christopher and Danielle’s news and feel the bitter bile-rise of jealousy inside him. It made him wonder if there really was something wrong with him, though that wasn’t rational. Him with his bad energies and his blocked dick and his apron (which was just _practical_). He had vague, discomfiting memories of being slapped at, called a girly-boy… But he’d put that question to bed years before. He’d married Myra, for god’s sake. And anyway, that wasn’t a burden for Mackenzie, so he lied and said, “We can’t be mad at other people for having kids. That’s life. Let’s go back?”

“Fine,” said Mackenzie. “I’m not apologizing, though.”

“I’m not getting involved in that one,” said Eddie. The mailbox caught his eye and he thought he’d take a chance. “Hang on,” he said. “I want to check the mail.”

They walked back up the lane together, Mackenzie with her hands in her pockets and Eddie with a letter marked “TED” in an untidy scrawl tucked into his. “Mack,” he said. “About what you—”

“Forget it!” said Mackenzie, angrily.

“Will you let me finish my sentence?”

Mackenzie glared at him.

“Have you talked to your friends about this, or maybe a counsellor at school?”

“I blew my SATs, but I’m not _that _stupid.”

_Ah, _thought Eddie. _Not cannabis, then. Anxiety put one over you again, Kaspbrak. _He had wondered if the scores were out, but hadn’t wanted to press Mackenzie, figuring she’d say in her own time. She’d been working so hard. “You’re not stupid at all—I want you to stop saying that. Mack, look at me.”

She turned, still glaring, arms crossed over her chest.

“Me and Myra are always going to love you,” said Eddie, though conscious that he couldn’t necessarily speak for his wife. Myra’s family meant the world to her, but he still couldn’t be sure how she would respond if her sister came out, and that uncertainty, the idea that he didn’t know his wife well enough to say, disturbed him more than the possibility that she would react poorly. Myra didn’t practice, per se—had joked once or twice, though never around her parents, that she was a recovering Catholic—but her upbringing had left its stamp on her all the same. A couple years before, too, a woman in her office had left her position to have a baby with her wife, and Myra had cynically speculated on their fitness for parenting, though Eddie had thought that reaction born of disheartened envy rather than prejudice. He believed with all his heart that Myra loved her baby sister, but he had also grown up with Sonia Kaspbrak and knew what love could do. And if he felt the prickling dread of uncertainty, how much worse was it for Mackenzie?

“Whatever,” she said.

***

From the entryway, Eddie could see that Ellen was in the kitchen, serving pumpkin pie. That was good, he supposed. He hoped the others were waiting at the table or in the living room. “You want to go in?”

Mackenzie shook her head, so Eddie gave her a bottle of water out of his satchel. “I’ll deal with those guys and then I’ve got to go check on Myra. You going to be okay?”

She nodded. “Emily’s texting me, anyway.”

_Interesting,_ thought Eddie, but he refrained from commenting. “Thanks for coming back with me,” he said, and she crept away to her room, already tapping away on her phone. He hoped fervently that Emily was a good friend, and went to the kitchen to tell Ellen that Mackenzie had gone to bed.

“Will you have pie, Eddie? Myra hasn’t come down, I’m afraid.”

“Could I bring some to her?”

She nodded and dished up two plates.

Eddie could hear the voices of the others from the other room, not that any of them were volunteering their assistance. “Let me help you serve those?”

“Thank you, dear,” said Ellen. “You’re so thoughtful.”

Eddie handed out pie and when he returned to the kitchen to put the kettle on, Danielle followed, asking if she could help. “That’s okay,” said Eddie. “I’m just making some tea for Myra.”

“I’m sorry I offended you,” she said, quietly. “Chris had already proposed, you know.” She turned beet-red at that. Eddie turned off the tap, grinning into the sink to hide his expression from her. He didn’t mean it unkindly. “I’m not offended,” he said, and set the kettle on its base, flicked the switch. “Don’t worry. And neither is Myra. We’ve just—we’ve been trying to have a kid for a long time.” The cliché was sour on his tongue. “Shit, that’s such a ludicrous expression.”

She giggled, though judging by her wide eyes, more because of his language than anything else, then clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at _you_. Just what you said after.”

“I always told myself I’d never say it,” said Eddie. “It’s like telling everyone you meet, ‘We’re normal, we have a normal amount of sex.’ Who wants that?” Danielle laughed again, blushing furiously, as though he had said something scandalous. He changed the subject. “Can you get me the pink mug out of that cupboard—that’s the one, with the flowers—and some peppermint tea out of that one?” She did, and he thanked her, then put the tea and the two plates on a tray and carried them to his own room. The door was unlocked. A good sign, hopefully.

Myra was sitting up in bed with a magazine she wasn’t reading.

“I found Mackenzie,” he said. “She’s okay. How are you doing, sweetheart?”

“I feel awful,” said Myra, red-eyed.

Eddie felt awful himself, wrung out, drained, but he set the tray on the dresser and Myra’s mug on the nightstand, then sat on the bed and rested his hand on the comforter, over her ankle. “I know. I’m sorry.”

She looked at the mug, then said, “I’m going to sleep.”

“Please talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to say. I want to sleep.”

“I brought pie, though.”

“I think we should go home tomorrow.”

“Are you sure? They’re not _so _bad. I—” Myra was glaring at him, so he said, “Okay. I just wanted to make sure it was what _you _wanted.”

“It is.”

Eddie kissed her forehead. “Your dad was bugging Mack about wearing a bra,” he said, because if the opportunity to talk to his wife about what had happened wasn’t going to present itself, then he’d _make _the opportunity.

But Myra wasn’t surprised: she just rolled her eyes. “He used to do that to me too. He’s a protective father, Eddie. Don’t fuss.”

“It’s weird, though. She’ll be old enough to vote next month. And actually, it’d be weird any time.”

“My father is _not _weird,” said Myra, offended, and turned out her lamp.

End of discussion, he supposed. He left the room with his tray, but as he couldn’t feature going back downstairs, he went to the bathroom, where he Lysol-wiped the counter and washed his hands, then sat and read Richie’s letter while he ate his pie. He was absolutely fucking exhausted.

_ Happy thanksgiving from 2016! Hopefully the obligatory family conflict wasn’t too heinous. November here was a nightmare—no spoilers, but you’re a smart guy, you can guess. Then I got here and realized that your Thanksgiving wasn’t the same day as my Thanksgiving—d’oh! Hope this still gets to you. And I guess it was good to have a few days where I just had to work. _

_ You said you’d looked me up on YouTube—in that case, you’ll be glad to hear that I’ve been writing new stuff judged funny by people other than me and 19-year-olds who don’t do their own laundry. _

_ When I was here before I asked around and nobody knew who Sergeyevna belonged to or who was taking care of her, and her tag just led me to the vet in Rosendale, so I left my information with them and took her home with me. She seems to like Chicago and I like having her there. I got these dog-sized stairs to help her get on the bed—it’s unbelievably cute. _

_ Richie _

Eddie clutched the letter so tightly that it crumpled. He was, absurdly, near tears, so immensely relieved by the easy and undemanding friendliness of Richie’s note that he wrote a reply and walked it to the mailbox that night before he joined Myra, asleep by then, in their bed.

_ Richie, _

_ We never got to politics, but that’s because my brother-in-law announced his child-bride-to-be’s pregnancy before we’d finished dinner. Cue Three Mile Island, part two. I’ve been on damage control all night. (My in-laws are Catholic, plus it’s hard on my wife—we’d love to have kids.) _

_ I always wanted a big family. Be careful what you wish for, I guess, because I ended up with this one. Ha ha. _

_ I’ve been researching time travel, also, so that’s been interesting. If what you and I think is happening is actually happening, supposedly any changes we’d hypothetically make aren’t actually changes, but instead already a part of the flow of events. So time travel could theoretically be possible, but change wouldn’t be: if someone could time travel, they’d be prevented by coincidence, no matter how strange, from messing with events. Say if you went back in time to off someone, they’d keep dodging the danger like Mr. Magoo. Coincidence would smooth everything out, keep history self-consistent. But as far as I know, no one’s ever tested the theory. I mean, how could you? _

_ Do you think I’d come through, if I could fit in the mailbox? (I’m pre-emptively telling you to lay off on the short jokes. It’s a hypothetical.) _

_ Ted _

_ PS We’re taking off tomorrow. Probably best if everyone goes to their corners for a bit. I won’t make it back until New Year’s, probably, but maybe I’ll talk to you then? _

_ PPS Before you ask, I have no explanation for why you don’t get my family’s mail. Maybe you’re just lucky. _

***

Back at home, Eddie put their bags in the bedroom, then returned to the hall where Myra was hanging up her coat and said, “We both know that girl is making a big mistake.” Maybe it would be the making of the pair of them, her and Christopher, but he doubted it. He’d been Danielle’s age when he got married, but at least Myra had been, too.

“Do you think that makes me feel better? It’s so easy for her, she does it without thinking. My mother all over again!” Myra threw up her hands. “Incredible!”

“So what do you think about Christmas?”

“What about it?”

“Doing Christmas alone this year. We could, I don’t know, go to Mexico or something?”

“You hate hot climates and Mexico isn’t safe.”

“We could stay here,” said Eddie, smothering the impulse to argue the GOP talking point she’d probably picked up from Neil. “Relax. No relatives.”

“Family is important to me—you know that,” she said. “I thought it was to you too.”

Eddie hid his expression in the closet with his coat and refrained from pointing out that they’d left Thanksgiving—and her family—early because _she’d _wanted to. “You’re my family. We could still do New Year’s—Whatever. It was only an idea.” His breath caught in his chest and he felt in his pocket for his inhaler. “What do you want for supper? I could do lentil soup?” He liked cooking, found it relaxing. He could make soup. Then he’d feel better.

“That’s fine,” said Myra. “Do you want any help?”

“No, that’s okay.”

While the lentils simmered, he opened the envelope he’d tucked into the pocket of his khakis before leaving that morning. Inside was a note and a ballpoint pen printed with “The Noodle House Open Late 312-207-7035.”

_ Shit, man—that must have been hard on you too. I mean, hopefully good news for the future parents, but it doesn’t mean that shit don’t hurt. Kids never happened for me, which kind of sucks for me, but may be better for them? I always thought I’d have a big family, too, but I never put that plan into action, I guess. I just ended up the way I am. I know I can’t make it better, but I’m sorry. _

_ Richie _

_ PS I don’t fit in the mailbox. ☹ Did my pen come through, though? _

_ PPS I thought of a way we could test your time-travel theory. On December 7, 2015, I left my favorite book in the Starbucks at Penn Station when I ran for the 7:10 (pm) train to Boston. If you could get there, you could remind me? Be my hero, man. See you in maybe negative-12 months? _

It was the first time all weekend that someone had shown genuine interest in how _Eddie _was feeling.

***

On December 7th, Eddie reached Penn Station by six o’clock. It was still commuting hours and a zoo, Eddie swimming upstream and bristling more and more with every inconsiderate shove. Even adjusting for local standards, he was always being shoved around. “Do you fucking mind?” he snapped, and a mother with a horrendous doublewide stroller gave him a dirty look.

At 6:20, he stood rumpled and sweaty outside the Starbucks, and realized that because he’d come from work, he—of course—hadn’t changed. Maybe he should have tried to spruce up. He realized, then, that he hadn’t developed a detailed plan of attack before taking action. Then he saw Richie.

Sitting with a woman at a small wobbly table, he read a paperback and wore an old windbreaker, while she had long brown hair gathered on top of her head and wore a glossy, lightweight winter coat with a voluminous fur hood. The light hit Richie just so that it emphasized how filthy his glasses were and Eddie was fascinated: it was really _him_. He took his own coat off, straightened his suit jacket and tie, and sat at the next table over, pretending to look at his phone while actually watching the couple from the corner of his eye.

The woman put her hand over Richie’s book and pushed down.

“Excuse you,” said Richie. “I’m just getting to the good part.” But he marked his page with a stir-stick and said, using an atrocious English accent, “What does madam require?”

“You never answered my question.” She tapped his nose. “And it’s scientifically proven that The Pause after one’s girlfriend asks them a serious question is literally the worst thing you can do.”

“Uh,” said Richie.

“Now I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“Uh,” said Richie again.

“Sugar-free vanilla soy latte for Jenny,” called the barista.

“Cut it out!” said Jenny, laughing, and stood. She collected her drink, then returned to her seat.

[[Link to illustration on Tumblr](https://andloawhatsit.tumblr.com/post/612511851615600640/round-2-of-my-experimentation-with-miniature)]

_Sugar-free soy_, thought Eddie, contemptuously, oddly needled, though that was what he usually ordered if he felt like branching out, coffee-wise. _She probably says “chai tea” without irony_.

“Richie, I’m moving to Chicago in January. I asked if you were excited and you said, and I quote, ‘Uh…’”

“It’s more important what _you _want.”

“What I _want_ is to get a read on your feelings. You’re acting like you’re too scared to say. I’m not proposing to you, Richie. I’m not even saying we should move in together. Working at the gallery, I can actually afford my own space in Chicago and still do more of my beading and wirework, and I want to enjoy it. I _want_ to know if you want to have me around or if I’m just the most convenient boinkable option.”

_Boinkable,_ thought Eddie, disparagingly.

“Jen, I want you,” said Richie. He had lowered his voice and was looking anxiously around the café. Eddie hurriedly shifted to fidget with his phone. “What I don’t want is to be responsible for _your_ major life decision.”

“You don’t want to be responsible, period,” she said.

“Jenny, come on,” said Richie. “Chill.”

Eddie winced.

She shoved back her chair and stood. “You make out like you’re this sensitive new-age guy, when you don’t actually want to make a decision. This is your come-to-Jesus moment, buddy. You call me when you figure it out.”

She left, and Richie exhaled heavily. He took off his glasses and ran his fingers through his hair, and when he wiped his wet eyes with the heel of his hand, Eddie, anxious and with no idea of what he would say, stood himself and moved closer.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” said Richie. He put his glasses back on and squinted at Eddie.

“Nothing,” said Eddie. “Sorry. I only wanted to say, don’t forget your—”

Static flared over the station speakers. “—Boarding gates will close five minutes before departure.”

Richie checked his watch. “Fuck!” He sprung to his feet, knocking Jenny’s drink to the floor, where it splashed across Eddie’s shoes and the hems of his pants.

“Oh no,” Eddie groaned, thinking about milk stains.

“I’m sorry,” said Richie, rifling his jacket pockets, flustered. “I’m going to miss—

“Don’t worry about it,” said Eddie, distractedly mopping at his shoes with a napkin.

He took off at a sprint, backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Shit!” said Eddie, and smacked himself in the forehead. “Richie! Richie, your book!” But Richie was gone. The book had survived the latte tsunami unscathed, though, so Eddie picked it up and leafed through it, wondering if he had read it before. _Foucault’s Pendulum_ by Umberto Eco. Richie had said it was his favourite, and the paperback looked it: the cover was missing a corner and the spine was creased, while the title page was torn away and the remainder were dog-eared. Gently, Eddie tucked it into his satchel and went home.

***

In his spare time, he extended his research beyond Wikipedia and the online _Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy_ into what could most charitably be called crackpot territory. Ninety-nine per cent of the theories and alleged first-person accounts were so implausibly ridiculous that he had to smother the urge to waste his valuable time poking holes in other people’s nonsense.

Then something caught his attention.

It wasn’t related to time travel, per se. It was part of a Reddit post where the user wrote at length, rambling and disjointed, about their experience with time travel—so they said, but Eddie would have called it hallucinations, or maybe a bad trip—and referenced an account they claimed similar to their own. _That _story, even more ridiculous, was relayed in a series of tweets, redistributed as screenshots, since the original user had deactivated, that provided a first-person account of the alleged murder of the user’s childhood neighbour. The act had purportedly been committed by a monster that took the form of a clown.

Eddie, still in his work clothes, loosened his tie. His shirt was damp with sweat, but his mouth had gone dry, and when he grabbed his water bottle, he realized that his hand trembled. He’d gone and scared himself badly—how irrational, all for an obvious work of fiction, the Internet equivalent of a campfire story. Yet his office seemed to press in on him, like the room had filled with sand, pushing down, urging him to close the tab, clear his history, step away. But he couldn’t. He downed his water and reached for his inhaler.

Myra knocked on the door and Eddie started. “Dinner in half an hour,” she said.

“Got it,” he said, absently. They hadn’t talked any more about Thanksgiving or Eddie’s proposal for Christmas. Two weeks after the fact, he figured they weren’t going to. Hands still shaky, he googled the tweets’ text and scrolled through various iterations. Most were nonsense, replies included, with gifs, emojis, and similar foolishness, but in several, the same user had posted the same reply.

@farminglibrarian If you have had a similar experience, please email me at farminglibrarian76[at]gmail.com

Eddie clicked through to the user’s profile and found a series of links: reviews of horror novels, articles on multiverse theory, YouTube links to the Massey Lectures—all manner of material. Intrigued in spite of himself—he was getting _major_ crackpot vibes—he clicked through to the user’s blog.

“Dinner,” Myra called.

When he joined her at the table, his mind was racing. It was all ridiculous, of course, but it was fascinating. “There’s people out there, Myra,” he said, over a mouthful of vegetarian shepherd’s pie, “who believe they’ve witnessed this, this, this”—he gestured with his hand, fork jabbing the air—“this clown monster thing. Causing hallucinations, eating people—”

“_I’m_ trying to eat,” said Myra, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

“It’s like that Slenderman thing,” said Eddie, continuing unabated. In actuality, he was rattled, chattering at Myra because the prospect of silence—often their dinner companion—was too intimidating. “But way more niche.”

She shuddered. “That’s disturbing. I’m sure they don’t believe it—they’re just freaks on the Internet.”

“Still,” said Eddie, who wasn’t convinced that the community he’d stumbled across wasn’t, at minimum, getting high on its own supply, regardless of whether or not their stories were true. Any conspiracy theory worth its salt needed a cadre of true believers. “It’s fascinating,” he said. “They have this notion that the clown monster thing can travel between different, like, timelines? Or make you do that, and—”

“Why on earth does this interest you? It’s awful.”

Eddie came up short. _I have a penpal from the future and I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how it works. _“Fell down a Wikipedia black hole,” he said, instead. _Black holes_, he thought. _Singularities and closed timelike curves._

“Hmm,” said Myra. “Do you know when Mackenzie’s finally redoing her SATs?”

“Tomorrow,” said Eddie, surprised that she’d forgotten. He’s spent an hour the previous evening talking Mack off the ledge, since it was her last chance to do the SATs in time for college applications and before the format changed. What had Myra thought he was doing? Come to think of it, what had Myra been doing? Eddie thought she’d been reading, or maybe crocheting, but he wasn’t sure.

“She wouldn’t have this problem if she’d gotten her act together last year,” said Myra. Her knife screeched against the plate. “That was what Daddy wanted her to do, but no, she had to have her own way. I swear I don’t know what goes on in that girl’s head.”

“What are we going to get her for her birthday?” said Eddie, ceding to Myra’s desire to change the subject. “I mean, she’s 18. It’s a big one.”

After dinner, eager to prove to himself that he hadn’t been creeped out by a _Twitter thread_, he created a new ProtonMail account and emailed @farminglibrarian.

_ I haven’t had an experience like this, but I’m interested in the time travel element. When people say that this monster can travel through time or make someone travel through time, or move between worlds, do you mean literal planets or universes/timelines? And if it did, how would you know? _

_ An Inquiring Mind _

He didn’t expect a reply—for one, he had to admit that his question wasn’t in the guy’s wheelhouse, being more quantum physics than urban legend, and for two, if this guy was the crackpot Eddie expected, he probably ignored the tough questions. To his surprise, though, his phone pinged as he brushed his teeth before bed.

_ To An Inquiring Mind: _

_ First, a bit of background: my research suggests that this monster has manifested in various physical forms to prey on human communities for generations. I’m talking a long time—like, geologic time. I don’t believe, though, that It originated here on Earth, because in all my investigation, I’ve never found any indication that there’s more than one and there’s no living thing on earth that exists, that evolves to exist, in complete solitude. (“Ah, but Nessie!” you say, but the purported existence of singular cryptids lacks the body of evidence corroborating what we know about It. Notably, too, there is a lot of noise surrounding cryptozoology, but a great silence around It, a dead zone that compels us to look away when we shouldn’t. You must have felt that, too?) _

_ I also believe that It came from outside our reality, another universe or timeline (more on this below), not just from another planet. Because It now exists in our universe, though, It is as subject to our physical laws as we are—gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, and so on. Peer-reviewed case-studies involving residents of the Juniper Hills Psychiatric Facility as well as inmates at the Shawshank State Penitentiary note recurring references to encounters with monstrous forms, many of which I believe to be It, appearing to defy these laws—for instance, floating above the ground with a handful of balloons, blood that no one else can see, substitutiary locomotion, and so on. Researchers tend to classify these as psychogenic delusions, drug-induced hallucinations, or incarceral folklore, depending on their field of study, but I think it’s much simpler than that. It’s biological imperative is to feed on those it terrorizes—to maximize that terror, then, It has developed the ability to manipulate its victims’ perceptions and those perceptions become real at the point of observation. Like Schrödinger’s cat, but instead of finding a live/dead cat, you open the box and find the thing that scares you the most. _

_ Several individuals that I’ve corresponded with have described It’s “deadlights” triggering a freeze response, like being hypnotized or paralyzed, the way a prey animal locks up when confronted with a predator. Others, though, describe hyper-realistic visions of themselves and their loved ones in a variety of scenarios, stretching far into the future. Took me a while to get there, but that’s your “time travel element.” While these experiences could be psychogenic in nature or a psychotropic side-effect of some biological agent inherent to It’s form, my research suggests that they are the result of the human mind grappling with the experience, however limited, of quantum superposition (different quantum states existing simultaneously) prior to the collapse to a single coherent experience. As I said, It’s imperative is to terrorize. How better to do that than to force a human being to confront infinity? _

_ If I’m correct, the “deadlights” operate on the same principle as It’s ability to change forms. Using the same example, it’s like Schrödinger’s cat on speed: the victim experiences many quantum states at once, a wild range of possibilities, and that amplifies their terror. _

_ I have answered your question as completely as I’m able and in good faith. I hope you feel able to confide in me if that would be of benefit to you. If you have in fact experienced anything like what I’ve described, you’re not alone. _

_ A friend _

“What in the sweet living Jesus fuck?” said Eddie, aloud, having read the entire message in one breathless go. His chest was tightening as though he actually believed any of it, the bathroom shrinking around him, his own perceptions unreliable. He didn’t believe it. He _didn’t_. He believed in _facts. _He reached for his inhaler again and when his medication hit the back of his throat, he deleted the email. He couldn’t deal with that. He would stick to _real _science.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes:
> 
>   * Richie has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol.
>   * Richie vomits.
>   * Eddie and Myra experience and discuss infertility.
> 
> Please know that I _absolutely_ had[ "Substitutiary Locomotion"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpmshIjeSv8) stuck in my head after writing @farminglibrarian's letter.
> 
> I used [ Zhanna Mudrak's](https://www.123rf.com/photo_129136965_stock-vector-t-rex-dinosaur-skeleton-negative-space-silhouette-illustration-prehistoric-creature-bones-isolated-m.html) vector art, [ Zissoudisctrucker's photograph of Sue,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sue_\(dinosaur\)#/media/File:FMNH_Tyrannosaurus_rex_Sue.jpg) and [Coffee Vectors by Vecteezy](https://www.vecteezy.com/free-vector/coffee) as references when sketching out my embroidery designs.
> 
> Thank you for reading!  
  
**Next week: Christmas presents, career- and college-ready, mouthwash, snail mail.**


	2. Chapter 2

# WINTER

_Nothing mortal travels so fast as these Persian messengers. These men will not be hindered from accomplishing at their best speed the distance which they have to go, either by snow, rain, heat, or by the darkness of night. The first rider delivers his despatch to the second and the second passes it to the third; and so it is borne from hand to hand along the whole line, like the light in the torch-race, which the Greeks celebrate to Vulcan. The Persians give the riding post in this manner the name of Angarum._

_— Herodotus, “_ [ _The Persian Wars_ ](https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/mission-motto.pdf) _”_

**Christmas presents — Baby’s first eggnog — Secrets — Fear and self-loathing in Nebraska — Spock’s Brain  
_Richie_**

Although Richie hadn’t told the others about his ongoing nightmares, he felt safer every mile he drew nearer to his friends. They understood him better than anyone else in the world ever could, which counted for something, and when he pulled into the driveway with Sergeyevna to find Ben and Bev waiting for him on their porch, it was like a Christmas homecoming out of a movie. Bill, Audra, and Mike had already arrived, and greeted him inside with hugs and hollers at his and Sergeyevna’s matching sweaters. It was cavity inducing, sweet as could be, and Richie loved it. Bev had hung outrageously fancy custom stockings, printed with each of their names, above the actual wood fireplace, and once they’d all got settled, they’d even gone out to a Christmas tree farm, then hauled the tree back to decorate it.

Leaving the others unpacking Ben’s actual _family_ ornaments, Richie went to the kitchen in search of water just in time to find Bill mixing rum and eggnog while Audra said, low-voiced, “I thought it would be easier for me to handle. I’m trying, but I—That’s her, _her_, and I can’t—Shit.” Her voice broke on the last word and Richie tried to turn on his heel to escape, but was spotted by a desperate-eyed Bill.

“Richie!” said Bill, too cheerfully. “Want one?” He picked a glass off the tray and held it out.

A consummate actor, Audra schooled her features and took the tray itself to the living room.

“Uh, no, thanks.” Richie took a glass from the cupboard and ran the tap. “I’m trying to cut back.” He _was _trying and it was going well. Sort of.

“Good for you,” said Bill. “You want some eggnog by itself?” He drank from the glass in his hand, then poured another for Richie.

“Sure,” said Richie, who had never actually tried it.

“Ben,” Bill called over the bar that separated the kitchen and the living room, “where’s the grater thing?”

“In the sink!”

“Big Bill,” said Richie, quietly, and he leaned down to force Bill to look at him. “_I _have the relationship-disaster slot locked down in this friend group. _You_ have to find a different distinguishing feature.”

Bill scrunched up his face. “I told her about kissing Bev: I didn’t hide it from her—or Bev, for that matter—and she said she still wanted to do Christmas here and Bev said it was cool, but then with, you know…”

“Confronting the inescapable fact that you’ve got a type?” said Richie. “A small, feisty, redheaded type?” He was teasing, his default mode when confronting any and all thorny emotions, but it wasn’t like he could blame Bill. Bill didn’t _love_ Bev, not that way, Richie thought. Rather that, without knowing it, he’d sought the memory of someone who made him feel safe. Who could have blamed him for that?

“I don’t—Shut up.” Bill grated something over Richie’s glass.

“What is that?”

“Nutmeg, you heathen.”

“_What-meg?_ Gross.”

“How old are you?” said Bill, but his mouth quirked.

Glad to have won a smile, Richie said, “Are you going to make a reality TV special out of our down-home family Christmas?”

“No,” said Bill. “Audra’s not like that.”

“Bro, I am the poster-child for blowing up relationships with women so what you’ve got to do is the opposite of what I’d do: i.e., stop fucking around in the kitchen, my man, and get out there and apologize. Fuck, I don’t know—get a coffee, go for a drive. Just the two of you. I’m sure it’s hard enough being the odd one out around us traumatized weirdos.”

“I just,” said Bill. “I feel—I don’t—It’s too late for me to—”

Richie clenched his teeth to keep from interrupting.

“Forget it,” said Bill, heatedly. “It doesn’t matter!” He took a deep breath. “Sorry. But what’s with the Dear Abby routine?”

“People can give good advice without taking any,” said Richie, haughtily. “I give excellent advice while simultaneously living out of a burning dumpster. Figuratively speaking, because my condo is very nice. Ask Mike.”

Bill frowned at him.

With great effort, Herculean effort, Richie said seriously, “I know you want to make it work. I’m proud of you, asshole. I want to help.”

Bill drained his glass.

“Did you tell her about It?”

He shook his head, a tight, miserable movement.

“Then she’s going to know you have a secret, Bill, but not what it is.”

From the living room, Bev yelled, “Richie, you and Mike have to do the lights. Audra and I are too short and Ben is upstairs.”

“I’m trying,” said Bill. “I’m not going to fuck this up too.”

Richie patted him on the shoulder. “Coming,” he called, and went to the living room, glass in hand, thinking as he walked away that he didn’t know what Bill had meant by “too.” He took a sip. “Oh my god,” he said, to no one in particular. “Where has this been all my life?”

He and Mike strung lights to Bev’s direction while she joined Ben to dig through the attic for more decorations and Bill and Audra gathered their coats and mittens and left the house. Once they’d gone, Mike said quietly, “Is he okay?” He looked over his shoulder.

Richie followed his gaze: outside, Bill and Audra were walking down the front path. “Fingers crossed a little winter-wonderland vibe will do the trick,” he said. They watched Bill and his wife fade to well-bundled figures in the distance and he felt a strange twinge, like he had missed something important. “How’re he and Audra doing? Has he talked to you about it?” Mike probably knew something he didn’t. “I thought it was good they came together, but maybe they shouldn’t have. I mean, I like her fine. I kind of thought she’d be stuck up, but she’s pretty nice, so I guess _I’m_ the asshole.” He chuckled, hoping self-deprecation would lift the mood.

Mike was silent a moment, then leaned behind the tree, balanced against the wall to get a strand of lights hung evenly. “They’re still working on it,” he said.

Richie got the message and stopped prying. “How about you, Mikey? Anywhere on your road trip strike your fancy for settling down?”

“Not yet,” said Mike. “There’s too much to see, and I want to see it all.”

“Good,” said Richie. “You should.”

“Try it now.”

Richie plugged the cord in and the tree lit up. “Let there be light!”

“Beautiful job, boys,” said Bev, dragging another bin into the room.

***

On the 24th, Richie called Patty from Ben’s back deck, smoking a cigarette though he knew he needed to quit. He was halfway through a voicemail when she picked up.

“Hey, Richie,” she said. “Sorry. I’ve been screening my calls.”

“I’m honoured to have made the cut,” said Richie, who really was. He still couldn’t believe that his first fumbling effort had turned into more or less a regular thing between them.

“It’s all a little much, you know? People keep calling me, trying to be nice, inviting me out, but—” She groaned. “I don’t want to go out. I want to stay at home with the blinds drawn and the door locked. I know I can’t live like that, but with Stan in the summer and then November. It’s too much.”

Richie knew how that felt: he was outside smoking because Bill was inside explaining the origins of Eddie’s second fanny-pack to the rest of them, who’d never heard. It was a great story, but he just couldn’t handle it. For years he had thought Eddie neurotically over-prepared, as per usual—not that he was complaining, he liked Eddie just the way he was! Then, when he’d made some crack about it in the tenth or eleventh grade, Bill had shaken his head and said, “Rich, you know he only started the third time he had to walk you home with gravel in your knees, right?_._” He’d realized, then, that the second fanny pack had actually been full of things he specifically was likely to need—adhesive tape for his poor old glasses, an extra pair of drugstore brand for emergencies, spare change for the bus, disinfectant spray and large Band-Aids for the hell he put his knees through trying to learn to skateboard, and so on. Richie had been stunned —all that care and attention, just for him, Eddie the counterweight to his own chronic under-preparedness. It had only cropped up in conversation that night because Ben had given Audra an honest account of how the Losers Club had formed—a bit of shoplifting book-ended by two physical assaults—and she’d looked so shocked that Bill had jumped in with an Eddie story to lighten things up. It had worked, got everyone smiling, but a voice in Richie’s head had sniped, _Why didn’t you kiss him when you had the chance, you fucking pussy, if you had kissed him and pulled him out of the way, even if he hated you, he wouldn’t be dead, he’d be here laughing with the rest of them, _so he’d snuck out without excusing himself. Leaning against the deck railing, he shivered and tried to concentrate on Patty. “I get that, believe me,” he said. “I just wanted to say happy Hanukkah.”

“That’s sweet of you—thanks.”

“I’m with Bev and the others for the holidays and we all got talking, you know how it is. Did you know that the Urises basically adopted our friend Bill one December when his parents were too spaced out for Christmas? I was mad jealous—they were everyone’s favourite parents when we were in high school. His dad really turned it around after the bar mitzvah incident.” That was what Richie had really been jealous of: Stan acted out and his parents noticed.

Patty laughed. “That sounds like them—at least as I knew them.”

Richie coughed. He really needed to quit smoking. “I’m going to be in Atlanta in February, probably. Would you like to do dinner? Or something?” He’d had an argument with Pete about the booking, after the man had added it ahead of the rescheduled Reno dates. (“I come out and you want me to do Deep South? _This year_?), but he’d agreed in the end. (“You want publicity and you want bookings,” Pete had said. “Don’t rule out a whole state. I’ll come with you if you want backup, but take the dates.”) It was another mixed line-up, at least, and a chance to test-drive some of his new stuff, padded by the least annoying of his old stuff. And to see Patty Uris. Hopefully.

“I’d like that,” she said. “I’d like to… Well, phone me when you’re sure and I’ll make a reservation for us.”

He stubbed out his cigarette and checked his watch. Half past seven in Milwaukee. His mother would probably be at mass: the Toziers had been C&E Catholics since he was in grade school, but faithful ones for all that. He dialled, then waited for her answering machine to pick up.

“This is Maggie Morris-Tozier.”

_Shit_, thought Richie. “Hi, Mom. Merry Christmas?”

“_Richard?_ My goodness, this is a surprise.”

“Tis the season,” said Richie. “No mass this year?”

“That’s at 8:00,” said Maggie. “I was on my way out the door. How are you, dear? How’s Jenny?”

Richie groaned. “I told you: we broke up.” His palms were sweating; he ran his free hand down the leg of his jeans.

“I know that,” said Maggie. “But she’s such a lovely girl and it’s Christmas: the perfect time for reparations and grand gestures. I’m sure if you reached out to her now, she’d listen.”

Richie, silently screaming into his phone, suspected his mother was not only talking about his ex. He said, “Sorry, Mom. That’s not going to happen.”

“What are you doing for Christmas, then?” said Maggie.

“I’m with some friends in Nebraska.”

“What friends?”

Richie blew out a breath. That joke was getting real old. “From Derry, Mom. I better let you go. Don’t want to let the other lapsed Catholics get all the good parking.”

“Don’t be crude, Richard.”

“Say happy birthday to Jesus for me,” said Richie hastily, and hung up, then turned at a sound behind him.

Bill was in the doorway, peering at him with concern. “Hey, you good?”

Richie tugged the hem of his jacket, which had ridden up. “Oh, for sure.”

“I really put my foot in it, hey?”

Richie rubbed the back of his neck. “He was your friend, too, Bill. You can talk about him if you want.”

“_You’re _my friend, too. Come on and have some coffee?”

He went.

***

He’d hoped, naively, for a Christmas miracle, nightmares-wise.

Nope.

He woke screaming on Christmas fucking morning from a dream of Eddie at the cabin, sprinting hell-for-leather down the lane, yelling something Richie couldn’t hear. It was raining and the rain turned to blood, and then Richie was back in the cavern, drowning in it.

The hall light came on. “Richie?” said Ben.

“I’m fine,” Richie croaked. He reached for Sergeyevna and scratched her ears. He could hear whispers in the hall, but couldn’t make them the words. Then footsteps padding away; then Bev’s voice.

“I’m coming in,” she said.

“I’m not decent,” said Richie, though he wore a t-shirt and pajama pants.

“Pfft,” said Bev. “I’ve seen it.” She came in, closed the door behind her, and sat on the end of the bed.

“It was only a dream.” Richie straightened his t-shirt, which had twisted around his torso. “It’s no big deal.”

“Do you dream a lot?” She didn’t ask him why he had lied before.

Richie said nothing. The dreams were—_had been_—his secret.

“Have you talked to anyone about it?”

“For sure,” he snapped, anger punching through his fear and embarrassment. “‘Doctor, doctor, an alien spent 30 years trying to kill me and my friends, and I can’t get over the nightmares.’”

Bev drew back. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“Sorry. But you’re all doing great! Your house is so nice, Bev, and you and Ben have your new projects, and Bill’s writing, and Mike’s seeing the country. What the fuck is wrong with me?”

“Something awful happened to you, Richie. To all of us. That’s what.”

“Humph,” said Richie.

“Ben and I were having breakfast last week,” said Bev. “He saw a spider and didn’t want to scare me, so he lifted his hand to scoop it out of the way—”

“Of course he’s not a squasher.”

“And I thought he was going to hit me.”

Richie caught his breath. He hadn’t expected that. “Shit, Bev.”

“On instinct, seeing him out of the corner of my eye,” said Bev. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “I flinched and smashed the cafetiére, and I thought he’d be so mad at me.”

Richie took her hand. “What’d you do?”

“We left it all on the floor. Took the dog for a walk. It’s only been a few months, Richie. My divorce isn’t final yet. You’re not going to be all better. I’m not.”

“I miss him, Bev. More than my dad. More than Stan. And I feel so—” Richie covered his face with his hands because he was crying and it was awful. “I talked to Patty tonight and I felt so guilty, because all I can think about sometimes is Eddie.”

“You can’t help thinking,” said Bev. “Your thoughts aren’t a crime.”

“But I don’t _think_, not really” said Richie, wretchedly. “Trashmouth Tozier never _thinks. _If I’d been _thinking_, I’d have—I’d have—” His breaths came very quickly. “I’d have got him out of the way.”

“Look at me.” Bev lifted her hands to his face. Richie squirmed, but she wouldn’t let go. “You were seeing god-knows-what in the deadlights, I don’t know, because you won’t tell me, and you fell ten feet onto _rock. _It’s a wonder you didn’t break your neck, not that it stunned you.”

“Let me go.” He squirmed, not wanting to grab her, but needing to _bolt_.

“Richie, let me help.”

“Bev, let go,” he said. “I mean it.” She pulled her hands away, but Richie had nowhere to run, so he drew his knees to his chest and covered his face. He wanted a hug, but that was stupid, but he wanted it so badly. He felt an acidic burn like acid in his mouth, in his muscles, pain that flowed like lava from his chest to his fingertips. He wondered if he was having a heart attack. Eddie would have known_. _“I saw,” he said, speaking into his knees. The acid feeling spiked. _Don’t puke, don’t puke._ “I saw the fight go down. Like, a hundred times. More. Over and over. You said you saw the future, but I just saw variations on the same thing.” Bev opened her arms, but Richie left her hanging. “I called my Mom tonight, trying to get her voicemail, but she picked up. I _can’t _talk to her. I mean, I want to, sometimes, but I always fuck up, and I don’t know where to start. I fucking _killed_ someone. He was a vicious son of a bitch, but I killed him, and I’m still here and I don’t know why. Eddie should be here.” All that burst out of him, a clot of terror and anger and grief shifting suddenly to choke him.

“Come here,” said Bev, and at last, he went. She held him, and he hadn’t been held since the quarry, and before that… He couldn’t recall. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I can’t fix it. I’m so sorry.”

“Eddie should be here,” said Richie again. “I got a second chance and I still blew it.”

Bev shifted just enough to look at Richie’s face again, though he burned under her attention. “That was _It’s _fault, not yours. I swear to god, Richie, I swear on the promise we all made to each other, okay, that there is no way Eddie didn’t know how much you cared about him. You had a secret, honey, and I’m so sorry that it ate you up for so long, but you cared about him and he knew that. Oh, Richie, I don’t know what to say, but can you believe me? Will you, please?”

He said nothing.

“You want some water?”

“I want some liquor,” said Richie, and sniffled, though in that moment his friends filled his thoughts, Bill phoning him once a week like clockwork, exchanging dog photos with Ben and Bev, knowing Mike was in the audience on Hallowe’en, chatting with Patty, and the thrill of finding one of Ted’s letters in the mailbox. But all of that was embarrassing to mention, bruise-tender. Six months on he should surely have felt better.

Bev didn’t laugh. Instead she said, “How about this beautiful girl?” She scratched Sergeyevna’s ears. “Bet you’re glad to have her around. She’s so lucky she found you.”

He swallowed, painfully, and grabbed a box of tissue from the nightstand. “Geez, Bev, my own Kleenex? It’s like staying in a hotel.”

She patted his knee.

***

They all slept in the next morning and Bev, bless her, smoked with him on the deck while Ben made coffee and Audra made cinnamon buns.

“Ben says I should quit,” she said. “I know that, obviously. You get back to sleep last night?”

Richie nodded. “For a bit. What about you?”

She nodded back, bundled in Ben’s sturdy winter coat. “Same.”

Richie shifted uncomfortably, then asked the question that had been bugging him. “Audra didn’t hear, did she? Because Bill hasn’t told her about It and absent that context I look like a weirdo.” He took another drag.

“Bill came down to check on you,” said Bev. “But he and Mike and Ben decided to let you and me be, and Audra was asleep the whole time, I’m pretty sure.”

“It was nice of you to invite her out here,” said Richie.

Bev exhaled, then tucked her chin into the collar of Ben’s coat. “It’s not being nice.”

Richie gave her a skeptical look.

“No, I’m serious,” she said. “Not fishing for compliments. The thing is, I’d do anything for you guys, anything, so it isn’t even a question.”

He kissed her forehead. “You’re the best, Molly Ringwald.”

Back inside, they sat down to breakfast. Ben poured him a cup of coffee and said, “So where did you say you were going next, Rich?”

Richie took the cup and two cinnamon buns. “Back to the ‘cabin’”—he flexed his fingers around the word—you guys hooked me up with in the fall. Get some writing done.”

“You’re going to work on New Year’s?” said Ben. “All by yourself?”

Thinking of the prospect of a new letter from Ted, Richie delayed his reply a moment too long.

Bev said, “_Not_ by yourself?”

“No,” said Richie, kicking himself. “Definitely all by myself. Stop looking at me.”

“Oka-ay,” said Bill, dragging out the word.

“Stop it, Bill,” said Audra, strained, and he ducked his head. “Poor Richie. Richie, pass the sugar, won’t you?”

He did.

“My friend Luisa loved working out there.” Audra had adjusted her tone and Richie had to hand it to her: she was trying so hard and her baking was delish. “I think that was partly because she was in a funk about LA, but how do you like it?”

“It’s pretty nice, actually,” said Richie. “I don’t want to jinx it, but the writing is happening. It’s happening. I mean, I swore no small towns ever again—”

“But,” said Ben, “it doesn’t count as a small town, since you’re not even _in _town, so you’re still a man of your word.”

“True, true,” said Richie, and thought about the mailbox, probably covered in snow by then. Positively picturesque, he was sure.

***

He was right too: it was pretty as a postcard when he arrived a few days later, though perhaps his perceptions were coloured by the pleasure of finding a note waiting for him.

_ Richie, _

_ I got you a Christmas present. In the closet downstairs at the end of the hall, there’s a crawl space nobody uses. Look there. _

_ Ted _

Richie smiled—he couldn’t help it, though he looked around in the still, cold night out of instinct to see if anyone was watching him. “Hey, Sergeyevna, Ted got us a present. Isn’t that nice?”

Perched in the front seat, Sergeyevna barked.

“I’m coming.” Richie trudged back to the car and drove the rest of the way up the lane. Once he got the door open, Sergeyevna dashed in ahead of him, running excitedly through the house, while Richie dropped his duffel and made a beeline for the hallway. The closet was neatly finished and illuminated by an LED bulb in a tasteful glass fixture, nothing like the one in the house on Neibolt Street, but he still shivered. He’d actually dreamed of it the night before, the bare bulb and the feel of Eddie’s narrow wrist under his fingertips, how his fear of the three doors ahead of them had outweighed his fear that Eddie would wriggle free in disgust. “It’s fine,” he said aloud, and stepped inside to prise the cover from the crawl space. Inside sat a dusty package wrapped in plastic. He blew on it, coughed and pushed away the memory of grappling with Eddie over his inhaler, then unwrapped the bundle to find the book he’d lost at Penn Station the year before. A note was tucked inside.

_ I guess it was arrogance on my part to try and outthink the Novikov self-consistency principle. Sorry I was staring at you. Now you know why. _

_ Ted _

It hadn’t occurred to Richie when he suggested that Ted rescue his book that the other man would see his argument with Jenny. He’d forgotten the man at the other table—Ted!—in his own panic at the prospect of being alone, alone with himself and all that he was. He had thought himself so lucky to have found Jenny in the first place, in a bar after a New York show because she’d thought he was funny, he, himself, for real, and so couldn’t stomach the thought of doing all that again that he had called her from the train. He’d cried, which had been awful, and the woman across the aisle had stared openly, but Jenny forgave him, _wanted _him again, and had given him a signed copy of _Foucault’s Pendulum_ for his birthday a couple months later. For all the good that had done. Turned out that when she said “I’m not proposing to you,” what she meant was, “You should propose to me.”

He settled on the sofa with the book on his lap, while Sergeyevna flopped on top of his feet. He reached down to scratch her ears. “We’re okay, right? We’re strong and independent. Don’t need a woman. Or a man. Right?”

She panted happily.

Settled in, Richie got a fire going without burning the house down and worked on his reply.

_ Thanks, man! I can’t believe that was you. You weren’t exactly catching me at my best (she dumped me earlier this year), but I’m glad to have my book back. I think it was a gift, I don’t even remember, but I’ve had it forever. _

He was technically implying, to the average guy, that he was straight. He knew that, but made no effort to do otherwise. Maybe that was cowardly, but he didn’t know how to reference it. It felt like a paint bomb. He didn’t know how to be… Gay.

_ How was your Christmas? Mine was actually pretty nice, all things considered. I visited some friends in Nebraska instead of going it alone, and they went all out: Christmas crackers, stockings by the fire, eggnog (would you believe I never had that before?), the whole nine yards. We were all friends when we were kids, but we lost two of our group this year. I wasn’t sure if it’d be too hard to see them at Christmas, but actually, it was good. _

The relief he felt at mentioning his friends so casually surprised him, an unexpected wash of comfort at being able to speak so openly about what he’d lost, what they’d all lost.

_ But it’s also GREAT to see the back of this year. Hope your in-laws are less insane than at Thanksgiving? How’s the baby-mama? _

_ Also, real question: do you think that was coincidence or whatever at Penn Station, preventing change, or do you think it was subconscious? Like if we get the idea that we can’t change things in our heads, we accidentally-on-purpose don’t? (Liberal arts major here—never technically finished my degree thanks to ONE science class.) _

_ Richie _

The mailbox flag screeched up as soon as he’d closed the box, and when he opened it again he found a note written on a torn-edged magazine ad for camo backpacks.

_ You found it! Holy shit! That’s so cool! _

_ Talk soon. _

_ Ted _

_ PS This is NOT my dumbass survivalist magazine. _

The next morning, a longer note waited in the box and Richie felt like a kid unpacking a stocking.

_ My Christmas was pretty standard, I guess. Saw my mom in Jersey and my in-laws up in Rosendale. I tried to talk my wife into bailing on these guys for Mexico or something, but her family’s important to her. Maybe next year will be different. We’ll see. Anyway. The baby-mama and papa (that sounds weird—sorry) are spending Christmas with her family in Connecticut, so we’re at detente for the time being. She and my wife patched things up, though, which is good—she (my wife) loves fussing over people and a mom-to-be was too hard to resist. _

_ How’s the writing going? I throw myself into work when I’m stressed (I do liability policy—pretty much the polar opposite of stand-up, right? I like it, though, because it’s a way to fix problems, help people), but it sounds like you’ve taken some major hits this year. I would think it’d be hard to be funny after that? Good for you for sticking to it. _

_ Re: Penn Station, here’s the thing: I didn’t forget. I was literally in the middle of reminding you to grab your book, when you knocked the cup over. It actually kind of shook me up. I wondered if I caused it. It makes things feel so inevitable. I guess no more so than the fact that I’d eat pavement if I tried to fly, for instance, laws of the universe, but still. I’ll try to think of another experiment. Have you heard of Schrödinger’s cat, how possibilities collapse into one reality on observation? Where do those possibilities go? _

_ Never mind. Just ignore me. _

_ Ted _

But Richie didn’t want to ignore him, and instead spent hours reading Wikipedia articles so he could try to keep up. “He’s talking science to me, Sergeyevna,” he said, squinting at his laptop screen. “And I can only keep a concept in my head for a hot minute. It’s_ Spock’s Brain _up in here.”

She knocked her little nose against his shin.

“Thank you for your support,” he said. “Should I tell Ted you say hello?” He checked his watch. “Oh, dinner, is it?” At the sound of the magic word, she trotted for the kitchen, and done in on science for the day, Richie followed. He fed her, then himself, and then retired to the living room with his Christmas present._ New Year’s Eve,_ he thought, as he got the fire going, then tucked up on the sofa. _And you’re alone with a book. _He could have made a joke of it—a failed attempt at sexy librarianship, Trashmouth’s top ten ways to botch “Netflix and chill,” etcetera, etcetera—but Sergeyevna settled on the rug and he realized that, given the options available, he was exactly where he wanted to be. Christmas had been terrific—residual clown-related trauma aside—but he didn’t wish he were still in Nebraska, nor was he sorry not to be in Chicago getting tanked with Jenny like the year before. Even his occasional amorphous, lonely daydreams—abstract, fleeting things: the idea of a man’s hand on his shoulder or his ribs or his hip, a dip in the bed beside him when it was time to sleep, an entirely different life that existed behind his door until he turned the key in the lock and found himself at home alone—let him be, and as he read, the words of his old favourite struck him oddly. They were familiar, but also strangely charged, as though he had unlocked some new understanding.

_ You’re here to learn what happened to a man who, in a mad (or desperate) act of courage, tried once and for all to stop running away—perhaps in order to hasten his encounter, so many times postponed, with the truth. _

He put the book down and thought suddenly, unaccountably, _You could forgive yourself, maybe, Tozier, for being a kid. _Although he’d had a couple drinks, he hadn’t overdone it, so he didn’t know where the thought had come from. It had certainly never occurred to him before.

***

At 11:45, he walked Sergeyevna down to the mailbox, finding the winter air surprisingly refreshing. Away from the house, he could see the stars.

_ Ted, _

_ The writing sucks way less now than it did in September. Still nothing coherent, but I’m testing some stuff right now and if it goes well… I won’t get ahead of myself, but we’ll see. Got some dates in Reno and a show at The Matchbox Theatre in Atlanta on Valentine’s Day (ha ha). Hopefully that’ll go okay. But I’ve got a friend who lives in Atlanta, too, so I’m going to try and see her while I’m there. _

_ Sergeyevna says hi and also, it’s all Greek to me, but I formally agree to be part of your blind experiment. Let me know the results. _

_ Richie _

_ PS Happy new year! _

_ PPS When do you think you’ll be back again? _

No sooner had he stepped back than he heard the flag go up, the grate of metal on metal, and eagerly, he reopened the box.

_ I wondered if you’d be down here! Happy new year to you, too! We’ll be back at Easter—that’s the end of March for me, but I don’t know what it is for you. _

_ Ted _

Richie thought briefly of suggesting that Ted call him or vice versa, then chastened himself sternly for being over-eager. Coming on _way_ too strong. Not that he was “coming on,” of course. Instead, he wrote a reply on the back of Ted’s note.

_ Fine by me! The lunar specifics haven’t made a difference since I outgrew my mother’s ability to force me to go to mass. _

_ Richie _

He had in his back pocket a supercomputer that offered instantaneous communication as a standard feature, but no notification could hold a candle to the thrill that ran through him at the sight of a scrap of paper in the back of the mailbox, Ted’s writing packed tightly into the last available free space.

_ Oh my god, you too? My mom was so pissed the first time I told her I wasn’t going. Only took fifteen more tries or so, but eventually I got through to her… I better get back, but good luck with 2017! _

_ Ted _

**Secrets (II) — Career- and college-ready — Sons and mothers (II) — Doing real good  
_Eddie_**

It had been 2016 for less than a week when Eddie realized he had a problem. It wasn’t that he had specifically intended to hide the mailbox or Richie’s letters from Myra. It was worse than that: he had never once thought to tell her. When had he stopped confiding in his wife? He wasn’t doing anything wrong—but if he wasn’t doing anything wrong, why was he hiding it and why did he feel guilty? He was agitated, eager for Easter so he could get back to the mailbox, when he’d always looked forward to a post-Christmas break from high-intensity Moore exposure. Finding, Richie at Penn Station, he felt like he’d run into an old friend, someone he’d known for years. He’d felt… Well. Admiration. But there was nothing wrong with that. He was secure in himself, not some steroidal homophobe who couldn’t make an aesthetic observation, and he was married. He was married and Richie had _friends_—real friends, friends he’d known since childhood, friends that spent Christmas together, while _he _had spent Christmas in Long Branch, his mother and Myra agonizing over sugar and sodium and eggs and gluten and colorants and free radicals and so on until his food—food that _he’d_ cooked, _good _food—was ash in his mouth and he was sick with anxiety. So much so that Myra got it in her head that he’d given himself food poisoning, no matter how he argued that if that were true, she and Sonia would also be sick, and also, he knew how to cook a goddamn turkey. Out in Rosendale, they’d done the whole song and dance all over again, though of course, Myra hadn’t tried her clean-eating proselytizing on _her_ family. Neil wouldn’t have stood for that.

“Can you stop that, please?”

“What?” He looked at Myra, drinking her morning decaf at the other end of the table.

“You’re sitting there, staring into space, and you’ve been tapping the table for 20 minutes. Can you stop?”

“Sorry. Hey, Myra?”

“Hmm?”

“I think I might do some volunteer work.” When he’d stepped out of the office for a coffee a few days before, he’d seen a poster for a local group aiming to lobby congressional candidates on climate issues. He had first thought, contemptuously, that he was bored to tears of climate conversations that talked big-picture liability, but didn’t have state- or city-level data, and then stopped so suddenly that his drink slopped over the edge of his cup. _He _knew plenty and it wouldn’t be a work conflict. Maybe he could help.

“Volunteer? For what?”

He had emailed the address on the poster with a pitch and a few questions, and soon received an invitation to discuss the matter further at the next meeting. “Strategic planning for this community organization,” he said. “Helping them with risk analysis, stats data, that sort of thing.”

“Better you than me if it’s politics,” said Myra, “but I’m sure you’d be a great help to them, Eddie. They’d be lucky to have you.” She stirred her coffee.

Eddie frowned. He ought to have been gratified by Myra’s praise. It was ungrateful of him not to be—ungrateful not to appreciate her unflagging support. But the thing was, all of her praise was much of a piece, which made him worry that she didn’t care to pay all that much attention. Not that she had to, of course, if it didn’t interest her.

***

He was steeping a pot of jasmine tea and had 15 minutes left for a vegetarian stew simmering in the Dutch oven—Myra had set them on a January “detox,” which Eddie was doing his best to moderate with common sense and nutritional variety—when the Moores buzzed the apartment for Sunday lunch. Myra unlocked the door and a few minutes later, one by one, they clattered in, first Neil, then Ellen, and last of all, Mackenzie, who was glued to her phone and tripped over the hall rug.

“Honestly, Mackenzie,” said Ellen exasperated. “That smells wonderful, Myra. What is it?”

“Kale and lentil stew,” said Eddie. “And I’m broiling some asparagus spears.”

Neil handed his jacket to Myra, who had already taken a hanger for it from the closet. “In Russia, ‘vegetarian’ is slang for fag. Did you know that?”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” said Eddie. Myra elbowed him, but he was stuck on the way that Mackenzie had flinched. “And please”—his mouth had gone dry—“don’t say that in my home.”

Ignoring him, Neil headed to the living room and soon, the sounds of football commentary drifted through the apartment.

“Let me help you with those dishes,” said Ellen, and she and Myra rummaged the cupboards and set the table, while Eddie waited, run hot and cold with irritation, for the timer to sound.

“Eddie,” Mackenzie whispered, having followed him into the kitchen.

“Yeah?” he said, absently, thinking about Neil. Wishing he was braver.

“No, be quiet,” she said, still whispering.

He looked up, worried that he’d find rebuke in her face—or worse, shame. She didn’t deserve that. “What?”

Her face was unreadable. “I got my scores.”

Eddie put the oven mitts on the counter. “Let’s hear it.”

“It’s loading,” she said. Then surprise washed over her face. “Oh my god,” she said. “1491.”

“You beat the average!” Eddie reached out for a high five and she slapped his hand. “Fucking a! I knew you could do it, Mack!”

“I think I’m going to puke,” she said.

“Not in my kitchen,” said Eddie, anxious, looking around for a bowl.

“Figuratively,” said Mackenzie, laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Ellen had returned for the silverware, Myra close behind.

Mackenzie looked at the floor, bashful. “Got my scores,” she said. “1491.”

Ellen put her hand over her mouth.

Eddie looked from Ellen to her youngest daughter and back again, another surge of anxiety knotting his stomach. _Fake it, woman, come on_, he thought, mentally urging Ellen not to fuck up. _She’s your kid. Read the room. Come on. _He caught Myra’s eye and arched his eyebrows. _Help_.

“I’m so sorry,” said Ellen. “After you worked so hard.”

Crestfallen, Mackenzie said, “But…” Her expression dimmed.

Ellen said, “You better let me tell your father. Later.”

“It’s no use crying over spilled milk,” Myra interjected firmly. “Mom, I’m sure Mackenzie did her best.”

Eddie smothered a groan. There was no way Mackenzie would trust his praise now, though he meant it with all his heart: the kid had set a goal, worked hard for months, and met it. If her mother couldn’t see that, that was on her.

“Tell me what?” yelled Neil from the living room.

“Lunch in 15,” said Myra.

“Bring me a coffee, would you, Myra?”

Myra went to the cupboard for a cup, then to the Keurig. The machine revved up and Eddie, thinking suddenly of Sonia, watched Mackenzie set a wall between herself and her family.

“Whatever,” said Mackenzie. She put her phone back in her pocket. “I’m not hungry.”

“Please don’t be childish,” said Ellen, firmly.

Tears stood bright on Mackenzie’s cheeks, but she didn’t speak.

Her mother dropped her voice. “Come on, now. Your father doesn’t want to see that.” She shook her head and went back to setting the table.

Eddie stood mutely in his kitchen, once again overpowered by the Moores, and this time in his own fucking home. He reached out to Mackenzie, but she twisted away from him. “Mack, come on,” he said, desperately.

“Leave me _alone_,” she hissed.

“There is going to be a day,” said Eddie, “when you won’t be able to remember that score.” He was afraid, though, that she’d never forget how her family had made her feel. “But you should, because you worked damn hard to get it, and you beat half the people in this whole country that did those tests.”

“That’s the median, not the mean, dipshit,” said Mackenzie, through tears. She coughed, then started laughing.

“Fuck,” said Eddie, who hadn’t confused the two on purpose. Then he stopped: he hadn’t confused them. “No, hang on, I checked: 1490 was the average to beat in September.” He pulled out his phone and checked Google. “Okay. It was, and 1480 is in the fiftieth percentile, so…” Everything he knew about math had flown out of his head. Mackenzie’s certainty had thrown his into disarray.

Mackenzie sunk to her knees, shrieking with laughter. “Eddie, you’re a stat—stat—statistician. I was counting on you. Why did you trust _my _math knowledge?”

“My brain was occupied—I’m trying to cook!” said Eddie, but a ridiculous giggle jumped out of his mouth.

“_Counting_ on you,” Mackenzie howled.

“In my defence, my SATs were a hundred years ago.”

“Stop, stop, my stomach hurts,” she said, rolling onto her side. “I’m never doing math again.”

“Get off the floor and help me with the vegetables,” said Eddie, and reached out to help her stand. “I need lemon zest for the asparagus.”

“_Counting_ on you,” she repeated, giggling to herself while she grated lemon peel.

“Thank you for dealing with Mackenzie,” said Myra, after her family had gone home. “Poor little thing. She drives me insane, though. She’s won’t get into a good school with scores like that.”

“Does she need to?”

Myra looked at him like he’d suggested Mackenzie pick a corner and start panhandling. “‘Career and college ready’ is 1550 or higher. Good grief.”

“I’m serious,” said Eddie. “I know she’s got applications out, but she doesn’t know what she wants to do.”

“What’s she going to do without a degree, Eddie?”

“I’m not saying that she shouldn’t ever go,” he said. “Think about how unhappy she’s been this year, slaving away on all this test prep, and think about her on her own at some college, paying through the nose to feel as bad she feels now.”

“_She _won’t pay.”

“Not the point,” said Eddie.

“I just wish she’d try harder.”

“She’s been busting her ass.”

“Why,” said Myra, irritation creeping into her voice, “do you feel the need to argue with me about this?” Eddie rarely argued with her; it was rarely worth it. “She’s _my _sister. Daddy isn’t any harder on her than he was on me or Christopher.”

“He was pretty damn hard on you,” said Eddie, goaded into criticizing Neil when he ought to have known better. He thought of Myra in college, her hair in braids and the gold crucifix around her neck that had reminded him of _The X-Files_. Neil would appear at random intervals to “check on her,” commenting on her “health”—i.e., her weight—and making cracks about her M.R.S. degree.

“He _wasn’t_,” Myra said, and her tone, stropped sharp with pride, dared him to keep arguing

“You’re the one that brought your father into it, not me,” said Eddie, anyway. “And I was _with you_ when she was born. Literally with you. In the waiting room, because you asked me to.” He and Myra had met when she found him in the hall after he stumbled out of a second-year lecture with an asthma attack. When his classmates glared at him like he was doing it for attention, she offered him a black coffee and her notes, and they sat on the floor with their backs against the wall while he waited for the caffeine to open his chest and she told him about her family. It occurred to him, sitting next to Myra in their living room, that Mackenzie, unhappy, gave her and Ellen someone else to fuss over, Christopher someone else to direct his family’s fussing onto, and Neil someone else to vent his ire on. He pinched the bridge of his nose, unhappy himself. He didn’t want to be part of dysfunction. He wanted to do better, to _be _better.

***

That week, while he reassured himself that he did in fact understand mathematics perfectly well, he received a personal call at work. “Edward Kaspbrak speaking.”

“Hello, I’m looking for Edward Kaspbrak?”

He frowned, already irritated. “This is him. What can I do for you?”

“This is Dr. Feldman at the Monmouth Medical Centre in Long Branch. Sonia Kaspbrak was admitted about an hour ago, Mr. Kaspbrak. She’s been having some complications with her treatment.”

“Her treatment?” Eddie tried to process what he’d heard. “Treatment for what?”

“Well, her cancer treatments, but you see—”

“Cancer? Are you sure you’ve got the right person?”

Feldman sounded confused, hesitant, when she spoke next. “Your mother is Sonia Kaspbrak, yes? You’re Edward Kaspbrak?”

“Eddie,” he said, unevenly.

“Okay,” said Feldman, and Eddie heard her take a breath. “Sonia is stable right now, but she’s not in a position to make decisions about her care. I can talk to you more now, over the phone, or if you’re able to come—you’re in New York, yes?—we can meet at the hospital. I can also call back later at a time we can set now. It’s up to you.”

Eddie was already scheduling his auto-reply. “I’ll come out there. It’ll take me a couple hours, though.”

“That’s no problem,” said Feldman. “You come to the sixth floor and ask for me at the nursing station when you get here. And drive carefully—you don’t need to beat the devil. If you can get someone to drive with you, I’d recommend that.”

“Okay, thanks,” said Eddie, not listening. He texted Myra while he gathered his satchel and coat. <Mom’s in the hospital. We’ve got to get to Jersey.>

He was pulling out of the parking garage when she called. “Eddie, are you okay?”

“Fine,” he said, though he wasn’t.

“Call me when you get there,” she said.

That made sense, though he’d been on his way to pick Myra up at work. She was the office manager for a multi-borough car service, but surely, they would have let her get away. It was an emergency. “Okay,” he said, remapping his route in his head. He hung up.

She called back and said, expectant, “I love you, Eddie.”

“I love you, Myra,” said Eddie, rattled, and ended the call. “Use your goddamn signal!” he hollered at a minivan changing lanes ahead of him. “Jesus Christ.”

Dr. Feldman was petite, with short brown hair and the air of authority that Eddie had always found both reassuring and galling in the string of medical professionals that had punctuated his life. With intractable efficiency, she shepherded him into a small office.

“Hang on,” he said. “Where’s my mom?”

She closed the door behind them. “I’ll take you to see Sonia in a few minutes, but let’s talk first.”

“No, I need you to tell me what’s going on. What happened?”

“Mr. Kaspbrak—”

“Eddie. Please.”

She nodded. “Eddie. This is a perplexing situation. Sonia was very clear that you are her next-of-kin.”

Eddie nodded. She didn’t have anyone else.

“But when we spoke earlier it became apparent to me that she’s withheld important information about her health from you, contrary to what she had told me and the rest of her care team.”

“You said cancer?” He couldn’t believe it. He felt separated from his body, a distant observer. “I just saw her at Christmas.” She’d seemed off and hadn’t eaten very much, but said she had the flu. She always had _something_ and Myra had been in his face about food poisoning, so he hadn’t paid attention.

Feldman nodded. “Yes. Of the liver. She was diagnosed last summer.”

“Last _summer_?” Eddie ran his hands through his hair.

Feldman nodded again. “I’ve been her oncologist since her diagnosis, but unfortunately and against my advice, she declined a conventional course of treatment.”

Eddie was on his feet, pacing the room furiously. “She did _what_? Why? Why would she do something so irresponsible? She has good insurance.”

Feldman sat silently.

“Sorry,” he said. “What—what was she—Okay. What are the options now?”

She spoke quietly, but firmly. “Eddie, I’m going to speak plainly with you.”

“I should hope so.”

“At this point, Sonia is going to need continuous inpatient care. I’ve got the paperwork here to connect you and your family with our Palliative Care and Pain Program.

“Jesus,” said Eddie, who was conscious that Edward Kaspbrak, Adult Professional, was conversing with Dr. Feldman, while little Eddie K., that’s right, Sonia’s kid, no dad to set him straight, shrieked inside him, _Orphan! Orphan! You didn’t take care of her and you’re going to be an orphan!_

“Because of the medications she’s on right now, Sonia is going to be in and out of consciousness,” said Feldman. “But you can sit with her, talk with her.”

“Is she going to”—Eddie choked—“know me?”

“She may not recognize you all the time,” said Feldman. “But she will absolutely benefit from your presence, from social interaction.”

“Why wouldn’t she say something?” he asked, knowing Feldman couldn’t answer.

“Unfortunately, medical anxiety is very common, particularly when people are diagnosed with a serious illness, and people can behave in surprising ways, inconsistent ways, when they’re frightened.”

_I ought to know: she had me in emergency twice a month for years. _Eddie’s chest tightened; he didn’t know where that thought had come from. “My dad died of cancer when I was a kid,” he said. “She always worried about it.” _That and everything else_.

“Here’s what I suggest,” said Feldman. “When you’re ready, you can go see Sonia. We’ll have other things to discuss, your referral and some other forms, insurance, a care plan, but we can do that afterward, maybe tomorrow. Now, are you here by yourself?”

“Uh,” he said. “My wife’s in the city.”

“Other people, friends, family, can visit here too, and we can field that for you, but rest assured, we’re only taking direction from you.”

“Okay.”

“You sit here as long as you want,” said Feldman, “and the chapel is down one floor, turn left out of the elevator. There’s a sign.”

“Okay,” said Eddie. He’d felt like he’d been hit between the eyes, his breath snagged in his chest. “I need—I need my inhaler and I don’t have it.” He’d left it in his office. It should have been in his satchel. He pressed the heel of his hand to his sternum.

“We can fix that,” said Feldman. “What are your regular medications?”

“What?” Eddie didn’t understand what Feldman was asking.

“We can refill your rescue inhaler,” said Feldman. “If you’ve got the prescription or you can get your doctor to fax it over. But that’s an emergency tool. What do you take normally?”

“I only need the inhaler,” said Eddie, for once not keen to argue.

After Feldman sorted him out—she suggested that he talk to his doctor about his asthma diagnosis, like he hadn’t been managing it all his life—he emailed the office to request the rest of the week off—he had days he never used, it wouldn’t be a problem—then phoned Myra, who had texted him 17 times since their call.

“Thank goodness,” she said when she picked up. “I was so worried about you on those winter roads.”

“I’m fine,” said Eddie, still not. “My mom’s dying.”

“_What? _What happened?”

“Cancer,” said Eddie. His tongue was dry, thick in his mouth.

“You must be so upset. Do you have your inhaler? How are you feeling?”

His agitation had only grown since she picked up, but he didn’t want to be alone. “Myra, can you get out here? I’m at Monmouth. In Long Branch. I’m not going to drive back tonight. I guess I’ll stay at Mom’s. I don’t know.”

A pause—long enough to be uncharacteristic. Eddie checked to see if the call had dropped. “You there?”

“I can’t drive out there. You know that.”

“I know, but could Chris drive you, maybe? Or Mackenzie could do it?”

But Myra only said, “Don’t be ridiculous—Mackenzie’s 18. It’s January. There’s a snow warning.”

“She’s a better driver than your brother.”

Another pause. Then, “I’m not comfortable in hospitals.”

“Never mind. The doctor’s here.” She wasn’t. “I’ve got to go. Love you.”

“I love—”

Eddie hung up.

Sonia was asleep when he visited that night, while Eddie himself passed a sleepless night in the cramped bedroom that had never been his.

The next morning, he woke early—he hadn’t slept, really—and waded through her papers to sort out her insurance information, weeding out appalling invoices from more than one naturopathic clinic. At least she’d let him put her coverage in order a few years before, so that was organized and up-to-date. Insurance he understood. Insurance he could handle. He bundled the papers into a portable file-folder and returned to the hospital, where he got Sonia moved to a private room and provided the nurses with a list of her allergies and sensitivities, surprised that she hadn’t done so herself.

She was awake when he visited that afternoon, sitting up in bed but impossibly frail for a woman who had once been his entire world. She brightened when she saw him, then called him “Frank,” his father’s name, and things went downhill from there.

Eddie took a deep breath. “Yeah, M—Sonia. I’m here.”

“Frank, I’m so worried about Eddie.”

“You don’t need to worry about Eddie—he’s fine. He’s going to be fine.” Eddie wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

“He’s always been so delicate. But I tried. I promise I did.”

“I know you did,” said Eddie, tears rolling down his cheeks. His nose was running. She was going to die. She’d be gone—forever-gone.

“He got sick so easily,” said Sonia. “I had to protect him, the way those dirty boys hung around him, and he admired other boys so much. It wasn’t normal.”

“He’s fine now,” Eddie managed. “He’s doing really good.” _No thanks to you_. The thought of Richie sprang unbidden into his mind—_unwanted_, he told himself, but he knew that wasn’t true.

“I worry about him,” said Sonia.

“You don’t need to fucking worry,” Eddie snapped, his anger at last getting the better of him. “For god’s sake, Mom, leave me alone.”

“There’s no need to shout,” she said, and then, two weeks later, she did.

**Thoughts on grief — Overnight delivery — Dreams (II) — Lucky dog  
_Richie_**

In early February, Richie checked his mail and found a heap of junk and one USPS Priority Mail Express package.

_ Dear Mr. Tozier, _

_ Please find enclosed mail received at 27 Brautigan Road, forwarded to the address we have on file. _

_ Yours, _  
_ Kamenosuke Sato _  
_ Premium Property Management _

Richie opened the package, perplexed, and found an envelope marked, “RICHIE.” He grinned, then, wondering if it was part of Ted’s mysterious experiment, but the smile fell away from his face as he read.

_ Hey Richie, _

_ So my mom died. She was so hard on me, I don’t even know where to start. I should be happy she’s gone. Does that make me sound like a dick? I haven’t cried since I was a kid, but at the hospital I couldn’t stop. She had cancer, but she didn’t tell anyone—treated it with bullshit until it was too late. She thought I was my dad sometimes. <strike>Basically, she said</strike> It sucked, basically. _

_ I’m here by myself now—well, my wife’s here, but she’s in town. When she gets back with groceries, she’ll put them away and I’ll make soup. I like cooking, normally, but nothing about it feels normal. _

_We came after the funeral. She thought it’d be good to get away. I feel like an asshole because I’m writing to you instead of talking to her. I don’t even know if you’ll get this. If it’s not picked up by the time we leave, I’ll grab it back, but I guess I had to write it down. I needed a friend. It all happened so fast, two weeks and she was gone, then the funeral, then bam, we’re up here. I probably shouldn’t have driven, I was so out of it, but I’m the one with a licence._

_ And my father-in-law was on my case about the crying. At the funeral, no less. I felt two inches tall. (Please no jokes about my height.) _

_ Ted _

He wrote a reply, then rushed to a post office and paid extra for overnight delivery to the cabin, hoping for the best. Why not? Was he not due? Besides, whatever he’d done in a past life to anger the universe, Ted hadn’t. Ted deserved something good. The clerk took the package and Richie prayed—if thinking, _God, if you’re there, you owe me one_, counted as prayer. In his letter, he had told Ted that it was okay to be mad about a childhood that had fucked you up, thinking not of It, for once, but of Eddie and Sonia, Bill and his parents, him and Went. Was it okay for _him_, Richie Tozier, to be mad? That he wasn’t sure about. He wasn’t like Eddie and Bev, whose parents had hurt them, or Bill and Mike, who had each taken an adult’s share of grief and guilt onto their child’s shoulders, or Stan, who had been able to fix things with his parents. He certainly wasn’t like Ben, who had loved his mother purely and cheerfully in a way that Richie had struggled to understand. _You could forgive yourself, maybe, for being a kid._ He sighed and drove across town to meet Pete for lunch.

***

He dreamed that night of a dark chasm where Eddie hung in the air, freezing from the centre of his forehead outward, and when he clawed his way toward consciousness, sweating and terrified, he found he could not fully wake himself. He was trapped, paralyzed, and though he ached to lift his hand, to grope for the lamp or his phone or _something_, he couldn’t and instead slid back into nightmare, himself suspended in the deadlights, eyes locked on a creature shaped as a man that cast a strangely rounded shadow.

“Look at you, Mr. Tozier,” the man-creature said.

Richie couldn’t speak.

“Look at all the time dragging behind you, a wound that won’t close.” A gust of breath shook Richie’s bones. “No need to worry—the beginning will come around again before long.”

What woke him, in the end, was Sergeyevna, whimpering in the corner of the bedroom because he’d thrashed so violently in the bed that he’d kicked away the comforter and thrown the pillows to the floor. He lay panting for a time, tears wet on his cheeks, but Sergeyevna needed him, so he sat up, planted his feet on the floor. _This is real, the floor is real, Sergeyevna is real_. “Come here, sweetie, come on.”

She came, and licked his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Did I scare you? I scared me too. You got adopted by a lunatic, you lucky dog. At least you can enjoy the spa while I’m in Atlanta next week.”

She lay on his feet, which was the only thing that kept him from going for a drink. He couldn’t reach his cigarettes either, or he’d have smoked inside, condo rules be damned.

“When is this going to stop, hey?” He leaned down, feeling the stretch in his lower back, to scratch her ears. “When?”

**Paperwork — The grieving parents of homosexuals — Cultural Catholicism (II) — Mouthwash — Your Mom  
_Eddie_**

Eddie couldn’t have said what he’d expected—he’d never been an orphan before—but Sonia’s death left a hole in his life. He couldn’t say he missed her, exactly, but he had no outlet for the time and energy she’d claimed from him: the phone calls, the check-ins, the fears that needed soothing, the make-work jobs. And there was so much paperwork when someone died: statutory declarations and tax filings, social security, insurance forms, funeral home forms, hospital bills, her mortgage and bank accounts and credit cards. He paid an estate company to deal with her house, because he just couldn’t handle it. He’d tried at first, then found a handout from a local church blaring “For the Grieving Parents of Homosexuals” in a hideous font. He burned it in the sink, then called the church office and lost it on them to make himself feel better, but after that, he couldn’t imagine wanting anything that place held. He had Sonia’s mail forwarded to his apartment and tried to keep his head above water.

They hadn’t talked about it, but he was certain that Myra was sorry that she hadn’t come to the hospital when he needed her. Both winter driving and hospitals frightened her badly, the last few weeks had been hard on her, and she’d loved Sonia, so he couldn’t be angry with her. Not really.

While Eddie tried to adjust to his new world order, February marched on. One evening, sitting at the table buried under naturopaths’ invoices and itemized hospital bills, deciding which he would fight, he was overcome and said, “God, Myra, she was”—he still couldn’t believe it—“she was having herself injected with fucking _mistletoe_.”

Myra looked up without pausing her crochet, the silver hook flashing as she worked and pity in her eyes, as though she knew something Eddie didn’t, and he felt an unbelievable, terrifying flash of fury, a burst of feeling he didn’t recognize in himself. “Actually,” she said, “it’s had some successes in trials as a complementary treatment, not to mention that we shouldn’t discount the placebo effect.”

Eddie went cold, and he put up a shaking hand, frightened of himself. “Are you serious right now? It’s bullshit.”

“Please don’t curse at me.”

“I can’t—I can’t have this conversation. It fucking killed her.”

“_Eddie_.”

Eddie closed his eyes and ordered himself to calm down. “I’m going out. Got my meeting.” Busy enough with work (though he was meant to be on leave) and his mother, his new volunteer gig was a lot to handle, but it kept him from getting lost in his own head. Myra had asked him, not unkindly, merely puzzled, why he thought it was worth the bother, and Eddie, who was in the uniquely terrible position of knowing what November held had said he wasn’t going to sit around and just let bad things happen to him. That had hurt her feelings, though he hadn’t meant to. The last few weeks had been hard on him, too. He went to the door and put on his shoes and coat.

“You shouldn’t drive when you’re upset,” she called from the living room.

“I will walk.” It wasn’t that far, and the meeting didn’t start for another hour and a half. He had time. He pulled his zipper to his chin. “Goodbye.”

“_Goodbye_?”

_ “_I’ll be back… when I’m back. I’ll text you.”

He got home that night, past 10:00 but pleasantly invigorated by his work, to find that Myra had waited up for him. She pushed her hair off her face, took his coat, and hesitantly suggested that they go to Rosendale after the funeral, and when Eddie balked, too brittle for close contact with her family, she said nervously, “No, I mean just us. You and me.”

“Seriously?” Eddie put his satchel on the hall bench, then bent to unlace his shoes.

She said, “Yes.” Then, “I thought… Just you and me. We could just pack a bag and go, because you’re on bereavement leave and I cleared a few days with work while you were out. But if you don’t want to…”

He looked up to find her fidgeting with the hem of her cardigan. It was pale pink with pearl-like buttons and she wore it when she was stressed, because pink soothed emotional energies. “Sweetheart, that’d be really nice, actually,” he said, surprised that she’d suggested it. “Thank you.” He stood, then kissed her and said, “You look really nice,” because she did. She blushed, then retreated to the kitchen, and Eddie followed her, genuinely moved by her consideration, but also secretly thrilled by the fantasy that sprung into his mind that Richie, in his own time, would somehow be there too. That they could correspond again. The dissonance between these two reactions, in concert with his persistent, confusing sorrow, slowly engulfed him, and on the evening they arrived, while Myra was in town getting groceries, he poured his anger and grief and bitter bewilderment onto paper and sent it into the void.

***

For all his internal turmoil, though, after he’d sent his frantic letter, their time alone was oddly peaceful. He cooked; Myra crocheted; they read; it was a holiday from their lives and they were not quite themselves, and Eddie thought with a pang that such a state suited them nicely. He wondered, briefly, painfully, what their relationship would have been like outside the influence of her parents, _their _parents, and one night, they fell into kissing—_easy as pie_, he told himself, _come on, Kaspbrak, it’s the most natural thing in the world_—and had just got each other out of their clothes when Myra went still. Eddie pulled away. “You okay? Did I hurt you?”

“I’m not going to do it,” she said.

Eddie blinked. “We don’t have to, not if you don’t want.” He sat up, shifting uncomfortably.

“I mean I won’t get pregnant. It’s not going to happen.”

Eddie took her hand, but it was limp in his. “That’s not the only reason for us to have sex.” He was a responsible partner and by nature, detail-oriented: he worked hard to do things Myra liked. He wondered if he himself might like sex more if they were freed of the pressure of procreation. If they accepted their own limitations.

Myra shook her head, fumbling for her nightshirt. She’d never liked to be seen bare, covering herself as soon as they were no longer actively making love, though Eddie had tried a few times, fumblingly, to explain that he _liked _to simply lie still, after—to not be alone while she got up to wash and dress and carry on about her business. He knew she was self-conscious and she had a point about cleaning up, but it made _him _feel gross, like something not worth being near, like they weren’t in it together, even if it was difficult sometimes, most of the time, and not knowing how to reconcile those two realities, he’d yielded. He hadn’t wanted to pressure her and supposed, anyway, that it was silly for him to want to… snuggle. “I feel weird otherwise,” she said. “I can’t.”

“Okay,” said Eddie. “It’s okay.”

“Don’t be mad,” she said.

“Sweetheart, I am not 15 years old and an idiot. It’s all right.”

She started to cry.

“Myra, you haven’t done anything _wrong_.”

When she didn’t reply, Eddie kissed her forehead, then got out of bed, pulled on his pajama pants, and steeped two cups of peppermint tea. She’d quieted by the time he came back upstairs. “How are you?”

“Oh, fine,” said Myra. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he said, and they drank their tea. He lay awake for some time after she finally fell asleep.

The bubble shielding the private, pretend world he and Myra had so briefly occupied burst the next day, when he found a package addressed to Ted Moore in the mailbox and had to stop to fish out his inhaler. While his mind had spun fantasies of Richie somehow receiving the letter, he had never thought he actually would, much less that he would send a reply.

_ Ted _

_ I don’t know if this’ll work, but since I got your letter (the property manager express-mailed it to me in Chicago!), I thought I’d try. I had to try. Would you believe I know exactly what you mean? I told you before, but two of my best friends were killed in an accident last year, and I lost my dad the year before that. Shit, it sounds like I’m doing grief Olympics with you—I just mean, I know what it feels like to feel that. Confused and bad and sick, and it seems like other people don’t want to hear about it anymore, because it can’t be fixed, and they’re all looking at you, like, “Still?” I know you must be hurting pretty bad, and you feel like you’re all alone in it. But you’re not. You got your wife and you got your little sister, and you got me. I want to hear about it. Tell me anything you want. _

_ When my dad died, I couldn’t believe it. We didn’t really talk, but I never thought about him being gone, and then he was. I mean, he was a dentist who was ignoring his family at the dinner table when the iPhone was still a twinkle in Steve Jobs’s eye, and I was a loudmouth who never finished my degree and became a comedian, so you can see where our troubles began. If there’s one thing I learned in the last year, it’s that childhood can fuck you up. It’s okay to be mad about that. _

_ I’ve sent along my signed copy of Foucault’s Pendulum, which can now be your copy—you’re free to read it or turf it or whatever you want. I just thought, nothing like a pretty bonkers book when you want to check out from reality for a while. Better than liquor. (Trust me: I tried that too.) _

_ Talk to you at Easter. _

_ Richie _

_ PS Some of my best friends are short. Also, fuck him. _

_ PPS Would you send me some recipes? My cooking would horrify you, but I’m trying to get better. _

Eddie huffed a laugh—_some of my best friends are short_—and fumbled for a tissue. He wouldn’t cry again. He would _not_. The book was a hardcover, first edition if he read the copyright information correctly, and the dust jacket was unblemished. He turned the thing over in his hands. It was a gift—just for him—and the scent of old paper and wood smoke and vanilla rose up when he opened it. Though he’d have expected the VOCs to spur a headache, the sensation triggered instead a memory in a flavour he couldn’t quite catch. Tenuous memories of himself at Sonia’s table, daydreaming his way through yet another lecture blurred with the notion of Richie as a child, boisterous and cracking wise to a placid-faced parent. He would choose good recipes to share, the best—delicious, nourishing food.

He walked back up to the house, where he stowed the book and the letter in his satchel. “I’m going to go get changed,” he said, calling to Myra in the living room. “Then we should probably get going if we’re going to make that reservation.”

“I’m ready when you are,” she said.

“I’ll be quick.” He and Myra were going out for a Valentine’s Day dinner, while several states and a year away, Richie was taking the stage. And visiting his “friend.” Perversely, since he knew how hard Richie’s year had been and how lonely the man sometimes sounded in his letters, the idea of Richie on a romantic weekend in Atlanta stood in such stark contrast to his awful month that he was… envious, he supposed. Churlish of him, too, when Myra had been so good to him. Eddie sighed and adjusted his tie. Then he got an idea.

***

Lucas had transferred to LA in late January, leaving the office short-staffed, so Eddie—under wheedling pressure from his director—reminded himself that he _liked _to work when stressed, gritted his teeth, and ended his bereavement leave early. The subsequent string of late nights and early mornings spat him out at the end of the week, shell-shocked and tasked with unavoidable weekend meetings, in the arrivals terminal at O’Hare. Waiting at the luggage carousel, he yawned, cleaned his hands, and scanned the crowds around him, because he was in Chicago and Richie was out there somewhere. His friend. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a real, regular friend. Lucas was his friend, maybe, but they didn’t often talk outside work and would even less with the other man’s cross-country move.

After checking in at his hotel, he showered, repacked his satchel, and went in search of a late dinner—airplane food did _not _work for him. He was on the phone with Myra, satisfying her that he had arrived safely, that he was in a good neighbourhood, and that he would mind his allergies, when he passed a telephone pole and stopped cold.

_ONE NIGHT ONLY_

** _“Trashmouth” Tozier_ ** _  
presents  
**BIRTHDAY SUIT**  
Live at The Comedy Club_

_February 19_ | _9:00 pm_

_21+_

“I just walked into the restaurant,” he said. “I’ve got to go. Love you.” He checked his watch. It was 8:00. The show was probably sold out. With morning meetings the next day, it would be incredibly foolish to blow a good night’s sleep on a night at a comedy club, to pretend that he was Ted Moore, a regular guy seeing his friend perform, instead of Eddie Kaspbrak, newly-minted orphan, let-down son, and ungrateful husband. Pushing those thoughts away, he flagged down a cab—he would have preferred to drive himself, but hadn’t rented a car—and forty minutes later, held a single ticket in his hand, paid for in cash so it wouldn’t appear on his credit card statement.

***

He hung around after the show, feeling out of place, but wanting to see Richie one more time before he turned in for the night. Richie’s set hadn’t been great, that was the cold, hard truth, but he had radiated in person a compelling energy that YouTube clips couldn’t convey. Eddie shivered and put his hands in his coat pockets, and after a few minutes more, a woman in tall heels tottered out the side door, dragging a man behind her. “Come on,” she said. “You don’t want to be late for your own birthday party, do you?”

“Jenny, slow down, I’m not as nimble as you.”

“The big four-oh hitting hard, babe?” Jenny kissed his cheek. “Come on, I want to dance. Don’t be a drag, old man. There’s the Uber and Amy’s holding our reservation at Skydive.”

They clambered into the waiting car and drove away, and after a minute’s hesitation and a slightly longer wait, Eddie followed them in a cab of his own. Marvelling at his own audacity, he talked his way into the mock-speakeasy, where he took a seat at the bar and ordered a gin and tonic. Across the room, Richie and Jenny stood in a crowd of 20 or more, all talking and laughing and gesticulating, a constellation of bright, noisy figures clustered around standing tables marked with bright helium-filled foil balloons. Eddie sipped his drink and fidgeted with his wedding ring, partly out of habit and partly to protect himself. Which was unnecessary, because none of the bright, beautiful people in that room were going to flirt with a corporate drone on business travel. The room suddenly felt very, very close. He sucked on his inhaler—real sexy, loser—and asked the bartender if the back patio was open.

“I mean, if you want,” said the man, giving him a skeptical look. “It’s pretty cold out.”

“Could use,” said Eddie, wheezing, “the fresh air.” He staggered outside and fell into a chair, pulling his coat tight around him. _What the fuck_, he thought. He hadn’t felt like that in years, that fear, that uncertainty. He did his own thing and people got on board or got out of the way. _It was Richie_, he thought, morosely. He’d set eyes on Richie again, but it hadn’t cured anything, hadn’t got it out of his system. If anything, it had made things worse, because Richie was handsome as hell: he had thick, dark hair in unruly waves, and he was tall and jovial and he looked _strong._ He’d placed a broad hand at the small of Jenny’s back as they stood talking with their friends and Eddie, a glutton for punishment, apparently, had watched it all. “You are married, you dumb fuck,” he whispered fiercely to himself. “You are married. Myra is your wife. You are not—”

But that thought was interrupted by Richie bursting onto the patio, drink in hand. He took no notice of Eddie at all, instead plonking his glass onto a table and promptly vomiting into a large cement planter. “The fuck are you doing, Tozier?” he said, and wiped his mouth. He spat.

“Mouthwash?” said Eddie, and when Richie jumped, he took the miniature bottle from the kit in his satchel and held it out.

Richie stared a moment before accepting it. Then he rinsed three times, using the whole thing.

Though he looked away, staring at his shoes, Eddie was so grateful to be useful that he didn’t know what to do with himself. “You okay?” he managed.

“Super,” said Richie.

Eddie considered the man. Even pale and having just been sick, Richie was as striking up close as from across the bar: almost half a foot taller than Eddie, wearing large black-framed glasses and with a five-o’clock shadow and his hair mussed, as though he’d been ruffling it on purpose. Whooping carried from inside the bar. “That your birthday party?”

Richie waved his hand dismissively. “Yeah, but they don’t give a shit. They’re here for the booze.”

“My birthday’s in June and I’m already dreading it,” said Eddie, because responding to Richie’s matter-of-fact assertion that his friends couldn’t be bothered with him was too much to contend with. “You’re Richie Tozier, right?” Of course he was, but Eddie was trying _not _to seem like a stalker. “I saw your show tonight. This is going to sound like soft soap, but you have a good energy.”

“What, like my aura?”

He shook his head. “My wife is super into that stuff, but no. I mean your stage presence.” He regretted mentioning Myra and didn’t know what to do with that feeling either. “Do you write your stuff?”

“Sometimes,” said Richie, shrugging. “Not as much as I want. Not tonight.”

“I didn’t think so,” said Eddie. “It didn’t sound like you.”

He snorted. “How do you know what I sound like? No offence. But they tell me my demographic is more college guys and old men that haven’t reached the 21st century, that sort of thing.”

“I can just tell.” Richie’s colour had returned and his hands had stilled. He didn’t seem drunk enough to vomit, but maybe he was sick. Resisting the urge to dig hand sanitizer out of his satchel, Eddie tried to focus on the man in front of him.

Richie took another pull of his drink. “Thanks for the mouthwash. You a boy scout or something?”

Eddie shook his head. “Insurance. Always prepared.”

“Like a good neighbour.” Richie gave his head a brisk shake. “They were all looking at me and I had to get out of there.”

“I guess after a show you’d be over people looking at you?” Eddie couldn’t stop looking for the life of him. He had moved closer to Richie, the better to hear the man. He thought Richie might be moving toward him too.

“I never considered that,” said Richie. “Nah, it’s … They’re mostly Jenny’s… Well, my friends, when I’m paying the tab. Anyway, I’m wired before shows, but bagged after. Have you been to one before?”

Eddie shook his head.

“We never met before? Feels like we did.”

Eddie’s heart was going wild in his chest. He tried to remember the symptoms of a cardiovascular event, but couldn’t. “We met now.” He couldn’t have said who leaned in first, but he was close enough to smell Scope and Richie’s aftershave, maybe, and faint, stale traces of cigarette smoke when Richie jerked back as though electrocuted.

“I’m sorry!” said Eddie.

“I’m sorry!” said Richie, at the same time.

Eddie put up his hands like he was surrendering to the police. “It’s cool, man,” he managed to say, though it wasn’t cool at all, because he was married and he had been about to kiss someone else, a man, until the man in question had freaked.

“I should go” said Richie. “I’ve got to go.” He flicked his gaze to the patio door behind Eddie’s shoulder. Shivering, he looked frightened that Eddie would block his path, which would have been funny had his fear not been so genuine.

“Sit down and finish your drink, will you?” Eddie gestured to a table away from both the door and the planter. “You can’t go back to your own birthday party looking like that. You look terrible.”

Richie knocked back a large swig, but sat.

Eddie joined him at the table. The chair was cold, the chill seeped into him, but he didn’t mind.

“I’m not gay,” said Richie. “I’ve got a girlfriend.”

“I’m not either,” said Eddie, thinking about Myra, though he stopped himself from mentioning her for a third time. Guilt worked a knife between his ribs. He’d lied and hung up on his wife. Richie’s hands were flat on the tabletop. They’d be cold to the touch. He wore a suit jacket, but he still must have been freezing. “We cool?”

“Yeah.” Richie picked dully at a curl of peeling paint on the table.

“I don’t do this,” said Eddie.

He snapped his head up at that, suddenly defensive. “Well, neither do I!”

“No, I mean—I don’t go around—I never—” He stopped, took a deep breath, then tried again. “I just felt something. With you. Sorry.” When Richie made no reply, he said, “Have you ever read _Foucault’s Pendulum_?”

“What?”

“The novel. You read it?”

“It’s one of my faves. Actually, it _is _my fave. Why?”

“A friend recommended it to me,” said Eddie. “But I haven’t started it yet. I don’t know what it’s about.” He was trying to put Richie at ease, get him talking about something that made him happy.

The effect was instantaneous: Richie’s spine straightened and a smile spread across his face. “It’s awesome,” he said. “It’s about, well, a lot of things, but mainly this guy, and when he’s a kid, like 12 or 13, something happens to him, he has this unbelievable experience, and he spends his whole life trying to get back to that, the way he felt then.”

Eddie, who had read the back of the book when he rescued Richie’s copy, had _his_ copy in his hotel room downtown, and knew that Richie’s summary wasn’t quite right, said, “Dude, that is so depressing.”

Richie laughed; Eddie’s pulse leapt. “Maybe. But I like it. It’s about other stuff too, World War II and the Templars and conspiracy theories. People who believe in conspiracy theories.” He scratched his head. “Jenny, that’s my girlfriend, she gave me a signed copy for my birthday.”

“That’s cool.”

“I miss my old one, though,” said Richie. “I lost it last year.”

Eddie reached for his drink as Richie reached for his, and they knocked into each another. Again, Richie jerked back, but Eddie didn’t. He didn’t grab either, knowing he’d be out of line and that Richie would panic, but instead held out his hand. “It’s okay,” he said. He wanted Richie to feel better. He wanted to touch him again.

Richie brushed his fingertips against Eddie’s, his breathing shallow.

“It’s okay,” said Eddie, again, uncertain whether he was trying to convince Richie or himself. The other man’s mouth was slightly open as he gently closed his fingers around Eddie’s. Seated now, they were hidden behind a trio of potted trees whose thin branches sagged under forgotten holiday decorations. “No one’s here. No one can see.” He realized that he hadn’t wanted his inhaler all the time he’d been outside.

“How are you this ballsy?” said Richie. “You don’t even know me.”

“I’m not brave,” said Eddie, because it was true. “I’m just not scared of you. You’re not scary.” He was leaning in again, and so was Richie, and when they kissed and Richie’s glasses bumped against his face, stubble rasping against Eddie’s cheek, Eddie tasted bourbon and couldn’t believe he was kissing a man and one who had vomited in the last half-hour at that. _I could live on this_, he thought. _I could live the rest of my life on how this feels_. Aloud, he said, “You’re going to be okay, Rich.”

“How do you know?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I can see the future.” _She’s going to leave you, Richie, but you can do better, okay?_ _Someone’s waiting for you in Atlanta, I think. You’re going to write your own stuff and you’ll do great. _His chest was clear and his skin buzzed.

Gravely, Richie said, “Does that run in the family?”

“Huh?”

“Because your mom used to have some wild dreams about me.”

Eddie shrieked, shocked by the sound but unable to do anything about it, because he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed like that. “Is that what happens,” he said, gasping, “when you write your own material?”

A smile—small but authentic—played on Richie’s lips. “Maybe.”

_I kissed those lips_, thought Eddie. “My mother’s dead, dickwad,” he said. “But that was funnier than your whole set.”

“You’re easy to please,” said Richie, but he looked pleased himself. “So was she.”

“Fuck you,” said Eddie, affably.

Richie’s phone beeped and he pulled it out, then pulled a face.

“Bad news?”

“Jenny’s leaving is all. Wants to know where I went.”

Eddie, who didn’t want him to go, said nothing.

“I’m not actually 40,” said Richie. “I’m 39 until the end of the month, but I was bitching about it to Jenny and she thought it’d be funny to have the four-oh party early. Get it out of my system. But then we got here and they were all looking at me and I bugged out.”

“I needed some fresh air, too,” said Eddie, thinking of the way he’d panicked inside. The sensation already felt distant, foreign.

“Oh! You want a cigarette?” Richie dug in his pocket.

“No—actual fresh air,” said Eddie. He was blushing, though he didn’t know why. Cigarettes were bad for you. He wasn’t going to be peer-pressured at his age. “Sorry. Asthma.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Richie. “You can’t help that. And these’ll kill you. Anyway. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”

Eddie wondered if she had thought about Richie’s feelings.

“Then…” Richie mimed vomiting. “Not even drunk. Turning 40 and my dad died last year; guess I was due for a crisis.”

“Richie!” A woman’s voice rose over the distant murmur of the bar. Jenny must have opened the door and poked her head out “Are you out here? Let’s go!”

***

Eddie had been saving _Foucault’s Pendulum_, waiting for the right time to read it, waiting to earn the reward of escapism, but after talking with Richie, he started it that night and continued reading at the airport and on the plane on Sunday, after his meetings. The story hovered on the edge of familiar, though he was sure he hadn’t read it before. He hadn’t read fiction in years and yet it felt so familiar, so obvious as it unfolded, that when he realized that Richie had been talking about Belbo, he felt a pain in his chest he at first confused with indigestion. He was not familiar with heartache, not like that.

_ You spend a life seeking the opportunity, without realizing that the decisive moment, the moment that justifies birth and death, has already passed. It will not return, but it was—full, dazzling, generous as every revelation. _

Did Richie really think that? Did he identify with a character who thought death was preferable to feeling like a coward? _These’ll kill you_, he’d said, as carelessly as he’d claimed his friends cared nothing for him_. _Had that kiss been _Eddie’s _moment? He realized then that he had to tell Richie what he’d done. He wrote his note on the airplane, before he lost his nerve, and tucked it away to wait for Easter, when he could send it.

Another week went by and standing in his bathroom on February 29th, brushing his teeth, he wondered where Richie was, out in the emptiness of time, and what leap years meant to time travellers.

Just another thing he couldn’t figure out.

**Richie Tozier takes Atlanta — Snail mail — Patty Uris at home — Secrets (III)  
_Richie_**

** **

Richie landed in Atlanta, left his stuff and Pete at the hotel, and went for a walk to try to burn off his excess energy. He was always that way before a show, but that day, his nerves were worse than ever. Next week, he’d spend his birthday alone in Reno, provided his gay jokes (and not in the traditional sense) didn’t get him booed off the stage at The Matchbox, and in between, he was meeting Patty for dinner. “Tozier, calm down,” he muttered to himself, but couldn’t manage it.

He found the theatre easily enough, only a couple wrong turns, and went to the booth where a young woman, maybe college-age and dressed in black, minded the box office with only a coffee for company. He’d beaten Pete there, but figured he’d introduce himself.

“Hey, I’m Richie Tozier,” he said.

She choked on a sip. “What?”

“Richie Tozier,” said Richie. “I’m performing tonight, so I’m looking for”—he checked the note he’d scribbled on his hand—“Jack? He’s the manager, right.”

She stared at him.

“I should wait for Pete to get here,” said Richie. “Never mind.”

“_You’re _Richie Tozier?”

“The man, the myth, the legend,” he said. “Disappointing, I know.”

“You just won me _so_ much money,” she said, beaming.

She ducked out of sight to fumble in a cupboard that Richie couldn’t see, but soon reappeared with an envelope, holding it up triumphantly. “’Do not open until February 14, 2017,’” she said. It was addressed to him and the top left corner where the return address ought to have been read only _Ted Moore._

“Fuck me,” said Richie.

“This arrived last year,” she said, paying no attention. “We’ve been saving it—we had a pool as to whether it was a prank or not. Jack hadn’t started as artistic director yet and Janna, the one before, she would never book comedy, but then when Jack started, we told him about…”

Only half-listening, Richie opened the envelope, his heart flipping over the handful of lines inside.

_ Richie, _

_ Hello from February 2016—Just got back from Rosendale where I thought of an experiment of my own, so fingers crossed this finds you. I looked up The Matchbox Theatre and the most exciting thing they’d ever offered was a lute festival, so I wondered if I could give them a nudge… _

_ Knock ‘em dead, Richie. _

_ I got your package, too. Thank you—seriously. I’ll take good care of the book. _

_ Ted _

_ PS I’ll get you some recipes at Easter. _

***

Patty Uris had a cheerful, open enthusiasm that must have perfectly contrasted Stan’s dry wit and natural reserve, and instead of meeting him as he’d expected, she’d invited him to her house—her and Stan’s house.

Setting a bottle of wine on her counter—selected after a frantic call to Bill for hostess gift advice—Richie surreptitiously looked around. The décor was tasteful and tidy, framed art pieces interspersed with family photos, mostly of Stan and Patty, but a few of Stan’s parents and what Richie assumed to be Patty’s family. Richie complimented her, then thought, _Stan died here_

“My sister thought I should move,” said Patty, like she had read his mind. “Sell up, get a condo. But we bought this place together.” She poured them two glasses of Richie’s wine. “You know, Stan warned me about you.”

“He did? What did he say?”

“He said you had to get to know you, but really, you were one of the funniest people he’d ever met.”

Ducking his head with self-conscious pleasure, Richie rubbed the back of his neck. “I can’t remember him laughing at a single joke, ever. I used to measure how well I was doing by how hard he rolled his eyes.”

Patty grinned. “I only know what he told me. He was showing me one of your videos at the time and I said, _‘really?’_

Richie snorted.

“But you’ve changed a lot, it sounds like. Last night got good reviews, I see.”

“Really? I didn’t look.” Richie sipped his wine. “My agent seemed happy, though.” He had worried it would be awkward, that he would be too gangly, too loud, too much for Stan’s widow, but her teasing put him at ease and they chatted while they ate, traded chucks, and Richie managed to drink at a reasonable pace. He told her something he hadn’t told anyone, that Pete was nudging him to book a solo show, and she answered his questions about Atlanta; he passed on messages from the other Losers; she cooed over photos of Sergeyevna, who was staying at a kennel that sent daily updates while Richie was away. “I’d have brought her,” he said, “but she doesn’t like flying.”

“She is _so_ cute,” said Patty. “Is she from a breeder?”

Richie shook his head. “She’s kind of a rescue.”

“Kind of?”

“Well, she adopted me, more than the other way around. I’ve been having a hard time. You know. But she needs what she needs.”

She nodded, then said, “It was difficult not be angry with you all.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Because Mike called and that was that.” She swallowed. “But I know Stan wasn’t angry with you. I try to do what he would have wanted. My family, my friends, they say he must have been depressed. I must have missed all the signs.”

Richie shook his head, not knowing what to say.

“I didn’t just want to see you for dinner.”

“What do you mean?”

“I read the letter Stan sent you all. Or a draft, at least. The shredder jammed, but he must not have noticed, and I—I found it.” She took a deep breath. “‘Dear Losers.’ I didn’t know what it meant until you mentioned the Losers Club. I mean, Stan had told me about you, his friends, the good stuff, but he never mentioned that.”

“Oh.”

“That’s my ulterior motive in seeing you tonight,” said Patty. “Can you explain it to me? Please. I want to understand.”

Richie wanted a stiffer drink very, very badly. “Patty…” He faltered.

“Don’t put me off. I can take the truth.”

_The truth is terrible, though_, thought Richie. _I’d spare you if I could. I’d do anything to spare you. Stan did_. He closed his eyes, then opened them again. “Something really bad happened to us when we were kids. Did he ever tell you about that?”

“He said that children went missing. He didn’t like to talk about it.”

“Do you trust me?”

“Stan did.”

“I’m telling the truth.” Richie cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Patty. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“There was a monster—a real, honest-to-fuck monster and It was killing kids, It killed our friend Bill’s younger brother, and we found It. The summer after eighth grade. We were so _little_, Patty, but we fought It and we promised that if It ever came back, we would too.” Richie’s hand shook, so he put his fork down, where it clattered against the plate. He drank. Patty had gone very pale. “All together to fight It again.” He brushed a tear off his cheek. “And last summer, It did. That’s why Mike called us. None of it’s fair. I know it sounds like a Rod Serling special, and if I could have been there for Stan, I would have, but… I did my best, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t.” He choked, but forced his voice past the lump. “We lost our friend, Eddie, too.” _Lost_. Like a book left at a train station.

“He said he had to take himself off the board,” said Patty. “I think about that all the time. I start to feel better and then it’s back in my head.”

“He was trying to help us, Patty,” said Richie. “He—I can’t ever make it up to you.”

Patty covered her face.

“Shit,” said Richie. “I’m sorry. I’ll go. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Shut up,” said Patty, through tears. “I felt like I was going insane. But I wasn’t, was I? This is all true.”

Richie nodded.

“He left me a letter too,” she said, softly. “I didn’t tell anyone because it sounded… People would have thought… But he never lied to me and he wasn’t sick. I know I sound like a denialist, I know it isn’t fair to people who are ill, but…” She came up short, face twisted with agony.

“When he was a kid, he meant everything he said,” said Richie. “He was the most sincere person I knew.”

“I tried to understand,” said Patty. “I searched for the words he used—I found forums, groups online that talked about some of the same things, hallucinations, missing persons, referencing ‘a town in New England you had surely never heard of,’ that sort of thing. It scared me, but…” She shivered. “I needed to see it. I’ve been obsessed, but it helped.”

“I had no idea you could do that.” Besides the obvious—all the missing kids, all their grieving parents—Richie hadn’t given a great deal of thought to others who might have been affected or how they might have dealt with it. As far as he was concerned, the Losers Club had taken the bullet for the lot of them and his own coping mechanisms were enough for him to (fail to) handle.

“You never talked about it? Even with your friends?”

Richie took a deep breath. “The thing is, we forgot. I didn’t remember that I grew up in Derry, much less the rest of it, until I went back there when Mike called. Stan and Mike had it the hardest of us, I think, because Stan left and had to remember, and Mike stayed and couldn’t forget. I don’t know why.” Stan, who had been the most brutally terrified, and Mike, who was all alone, had not been allowed to forget what waited for them, while he and the others had forgotten that they’d ever been brave—that they’d ever stood up to their bullies or their parents or their guilt, ever stood up for their friends and for themselves.

“Do you want some cheesecake?”

“Sorry?”

“I want cheesecake,” said Patty. “It’s lemon-ginger from Metrotainment downtown, so it’s perfect. You’re tall.” She pointed. “Get the plates out of that cupboard.”

Richie complied.

“We had cheesecakes at our wedding,” she said. “Me and Stan.”

They ate and Patty showed him an album of her and Stan’s college photos. “We’re all planning to get together in the summer,” said Richie, _summer_ being easier to say than _the anniversaries of Stan’s and Eddie’s deaths_. “Want to join us?”

She stared at him, fork held in mid-air.

“You don’t have to answer right away,” said Richie. “I mean, you don’t have to come at all if you don’t want.”

“Do you mean it?” said Patty, eyeing him intently, almost skeptically. “I could come?

“Of course,” said Richie. “I mean, it’d make you a Loser, though.”

“I’d love to,” she said.

Patty made a pot of coffee and Richie felt like they had entered some sort of time-warp, some sleepover out of his childhood where you could talk for hours and the night went on and on and on.

“How’d you know you wanted to marry Stan?” Richie asked, thinking about Bill and Audra, Ben and Bev, Eddie and Myra. Thoughts of Eddie morphed into thoughts of Ted, but he couldn’t let himself go down that path. He was grateful that Patty had served coffee instead of more alcohol, because he wouldn’t have been able to resist.

“He told me about the tax benefits.”

Richie snorted. “No, I’m serious.”

Patty sipped her coffee. “Me too. He made me dinner and showed me his tax return and an annotated copy of the federal tax code.”

“You’re joking,” said Richie, charmed. “You’re putting me on.”

She shook her head. “I’d been daydreaming about it for a while, wondering if I’d say yes, wondering if he’d ask, and we’d talked about ‘marriage’ a few times. Really generally—not _our_ marriage. Then I saw all those Post-Its, and I thought, ‘yeah, I will.’”

“That is simply the best thing I’ve ever heard,” said Richie, trying to imagine Stan as a young man, straight-backed at his desk, dutifully preparing his proposal notes.

“What about you, Richie?”

“Never married,” said Richie, waggling the fingers of his left hand at her.

“Not seeing anyone?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “My girlfriend and I broke up last year.” He didn’t know why he was lying to Patty—by omission, but still. He’d outed himself to a couple hundred people at The Matchbox Theatre the night before. She’d read his reviews; she’d know anyway. “I—I’m gay. Actually. But that was this whole thing, and I only came out last year. After Derry.

Patty reddened. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“No worries.” Richie shrugged. “I mean, it’s super embarrassing, but there’s no getting around that.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why is it embarrassing?”

Richie didn’t know what to do with Patty’s directness, so very much like Stan’s, cutting through his bullshit to get straight to the point. “I guess because I wasted so much time. And so much of my image was built around banging chicks.” He winced. “Sorry. Just. That was my thing—honestly, when I first phoned you, I thought you’d look me up on YouTube and start blocking my calls.”

She shook her head, then split the last of the coffee between the two of them. “You couldn’t have done it before you were ready. Now you’re ready.” She added cream, then sugar, to her cup, then stirred. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“True sleepover vibes now,” said Richie. “Please do, Mrs. Uris.”

“I told Stan that I was bisexual on our first anniversary.”

Richie blinked, surprised.

“It was Stan, of course he was so kind, of course,” said Patty. “But I couldn’t do it, not before then.” She gave him a little smile. “I was so frightened. I thought it’d be our last anniversary. But it wasn’t.”

“Thank you for”—he struggled for words—“trusting me.

“Stan did,” said Patty, for the second time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes:
> 
>   * Richie has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol.
>   * Beverly briefly mentions domestic violence (Tom Rogan).
>   * Brief use of slurs (Neil Moore).
>   * Canon cancer death (Sonia Kasprak).
>   * Eddie and Myra experience and discuss infertility.
>   * Richie and Patty discuss, without explicit detail, Stan's death.
> 
> I also post my embroidery on [Tumblr](https://andloawhatsit.tumblr.com/tagged/embroidering-my-feelings-again).
> 
> Thank you for reading!  
  
**Next week: Going Hollywood, a confession, a pair of tickets, wedding colours, chopping onions, lucky seven.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because the last two chapters are finished, I'd like to share them with you now, rather than stick to my planned posting schedule and let them languish on a flash drive. Working on this story has brought me a lot of happiness--I hope it brings some to you too! Thank you for reading.

# SPRING

_You can’t split hairs when you live in the coils of Transcendent Time._

_— Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum_

**Jealousy, guilt, and temporary biochemical disarray — Going Hollywood — Occam’s Razor (II)  
_Eddie_**

Christopher and Danielle stayed in the city for Easter, reluctant to stray too far from Danielle’s doctor and enjoying each other’s company, apparently, despite the protestations of both sets of future grandparents. Eddie begrudgingly applauded how they’d stuck to their guns, but his jealousy of their strength of spine was soothed by the opportunity, however anxiety-inducing, to post his confession when he and Myra arrived on Thursday evening.

As soon as he’d done it, though, guilt crept in—guilt he hadn’t felt once in the weeks since Chicago. The desire to tell Richie the truth, to confess to him, had burned in him, but he had felt no comparable urge to confess to Myra and it was her trust that he had violated. He had cheated on his wife. He said that aloud to himself in the shower, testing the words against his feelings and facing the same tired rationalizations no doubt used by dirtbag husbands everywhere: it was only a kiss, it wasn’t sex, it was only one time, it was the heat of the moment, it wouldn’t happen again. Richie’s lips against his had felt both innocent and important—necessary, like the path he had set his life on when he left home at 18 had led him to that cold patio in downtown Chicago specifically. And that, too, was the same lie cheating husbands told themselves when their consciences pricked them. While it wasn’t a crime and Eddie didn’t believe in sin, not the way his mother had and not the way the Moores did, Myra would be terribly hurt if she knew and that was a truth he couldn’t escape. Never mind that Richie was a man.

Eddie didn’t know what to do with that particular detail. He knew that he was a man, obviously, and he knew that Richie was a man, obviously. He knew that they had kissed each other, but he also knew that Richie wasn’t into guys—Richie had said so—and neither was he. He wasn’t attracted to men at all. Springsteen kissed Clemons sometimes, after all, and _he_ was married. He and Richie had an intense and unusual—and for all he knew, entirely unique—connection, but that was it. All his life, with attitudes ranging from personable confusion to outright hostility, people had assumed that he was gay. He had always tried not to be offended, because he wasn’t a homophobic asshole, but he wanted to _be_ and not be bothered about it. When he thought about kissing Richie in Chicago—and he _had_, more than once—his stomach swooped like he was a kid with a crush. He told himself that it was a biochemical reaction, the thrill of new and unusual stimuli, and that it would fade with time, because it would. Sensible men with mortgages and responsibilities and good jobs didn’t hurt their wives and ruin their marriages over temporary biochemical disarray, and if Eddie was _anything_, he was sensible.

Regardless, though, waiting for a reply was hard on his nerves.

Almost as hard, it turned out, as getting one on Saturday afternoon. Richie answered with such kindness and such unadorned courage that Eddie was at a loss for how to respond himself, instead rapidly reconsidering Richie’s previous letters and what might have run beneath their surface. The “friend” in Atlanta, for instance. He trashed one draft with contempt for its gratuitous solemnity and another for its strained and affected humour, and when Myra asked him if he wanted to go to Easter Mass the next day—he never did, but she always asked—he declined, telling her he had to work, then tore his discarded drafts to illegible bits.

***

On Easter Sunday, when the rest of the Moores went to church, Eddie at last posted his reply to Richie, then retreated to the bedroom to for a Skype meeting, that his excuse to Myra not be a lie.

“Thanks for talking with me on the long weekend,” said Lucas, once their business was concluded. He looked annoyingly tan for March, even over a pixelated video call.

“No problem,” said Eddie, distractedly worried that he was _noticing _Lucas’s tan. He hadn’t felt _attracted _to Lucas, had he? “The alternative was Easter mass, so…” He shrugged.

“Yikes,” said Lucas, laughing. “No thank you!”

Eddie felt guilty for diverting his thoughts from his discomfort by making fun of the Moores, though their brand of religion was distasteful to him, and changed the subject. “So how’s LA?”

“Eh,” said Lucas, tilting his hand. “Pluses and minuses. The weather’s a plus. Hey, are you out at your in-laws’ place?”

“Here all weekend.”

“They ever consider selling? Or renting?”

Eddie shook his head. “Not that they’ve ever let on to me. Why? Are you in the market?”

“Not me,” said Lucas. “One of Catherine’s new friends with more money than sense is looking for a place to camp out and finish a screenplay. Somewhere far away from LA.”

Eddie arched an eyebrow. “Have you gone Hollywood?”

Lucas laughed again. “Not me—I’m being dragged along for the ride. Catherine met this screenwriter chick at spin class and ended up at brunch with Audra Phillips!”

Eddie wrinkled his nose, thinking. “Who?”

“The actress, Eddie! You know. She’s going to be in the adaptation of _Attic Room_.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Ah, forget it. Look, I know it’s a massive leap, but I told Catherine I’d reach out, so just let me tell her I sent you her info?” Lucas looked pleadingly into the camera. “Do me a solid, man.”

“Myra’s dad would never—” Eddie remembered one of his first letters to Richie. _Neil would never give this place up_. He blinked, twice. “Actually, you know what? You should send it to me.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” said Eddie, mind vaulting ahead, spinning the probabilities. “I’ll pitch it to him later.”

“Thanks,” said Lucas, grinning. “Catherine’s going to be thrilled. Thanks again for your help. I’ll finish off that spreadsheet, too, and post it to Box for you?”

Eddie nodded his agreement, then signed off.

***

After dinner, Eddie joined Myra in the living room, where she crocheted, Mackenzie lay bored on the sofa, and Neil and Ellen watched television. He hadn’t looked at @farminglibrarian’s blog since his jarring experience before Christmas, but Neil’s choice of a low-budget _History Channel_ “documentary” about aliens prompted an impulse he couldn’t shake. He opened the site on his phone and scrolled through, hoping to scratch the itch and be done with it.

The most recent post, lovingly constructed if over-long, delved into the Mandela Effect. A year before Eddie would have mocked human beings’ tendency to spin conspiracy theories out of meaningless misremembered details, but when he finished skimming the text he couldn’t hear the television or the soft rustling of Myra’s wool over the echo of his heartbeat in his ears. He’d caught a chill and his breathing was shallow, but he forced himself to stay still. He didn’t want Myra or the others to notice his distress.

He hovered on the edge of understanding—if he so much as flexed his fingers or inhaled too deeply, he’d lose it. Based on his earlier research (and he was only a layman, in his defence) and what he’d experienced—the book at the train station, The Matchbox Theatre, the kiss on the bar patio—he had assumed that he and Richie were communicating from different points on the same timeline: he from Richie’s past, Richie from his future. It was also possible, though, if he was reading correctly, that he and Richie were not, in fact, inhabiting the same reality at all. Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose, clinging to what understanding he had managed to wrestle himself into. The concept of _quantum branching_ meant that instead of being limited by Novikov’s self-consistency principle—the notion that Richie forgot his book because Eddie distracted him, and that Eddie had distracted him because Richie had asked Eddie to make sure he remembered his book—each of Richie’s incursions into the past, every note, had instead accessed a different timeline, one of many. According to @farminglibrarian, paranormalists believed that select individuals could somehow move between these timelines, and so remember things that others did not. Eddie exhaled, then lost his comprehension. ”_Shit_,” he said, under his breath, unbearably frustrated. Other people’s disgraceful lack of historical knowledge—believing that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 80s!—didn’t prove anything about the so-called multi-verse.

“What’s that?” said Myra.

“Nothing,” said Eddie. The theory didn’t hold water, because he had all of Richie’s letters. He supposed that he could simply—_ha ha_—reside in a timeline where “Eddie” received all of “Richie’s” letters, as opposed to others, where “he”… didn’t? _You’re overcomplicating things, Kaspbrak_. He grabbed his water bottle from the side table and took a swig. _Keep it simple_. _Occam’s Razor._

Was it possible, then, that his reality and Richie’s _were _different, separate, but that the mailbox, for some reason, provided a stable connection point, like a port or a… _A wormhole_, he thought. He took another drink of water. The long and the short of it was that it _was_ happening: he was in _a _past and Richie was in _a _future, but they were communicating. Too, they were able to communicate through other points than the mailbox—the bar in Chicago, for instance, and the theatre in Atlanta. All that was true; therefore, there had to be a rational explanation. Although he had wanted change to be possible, the reality of it, even the mere potential, was terrifying.

Eddie didn’t pretend to know more about quantum physics than the preeminent scientific minds in the field, but nevertheless, he had something he strongly suspected they did not—experiential knowledge—and that was a hell of a drug. He thought then of kissing Richie, the feel of Richie’s tongue against his lips, Richie’s fingers brushing the side of his neck, and shivered. _Experiential knowledge, indeed._

“Eddie, you’re terribly pale,” said Myra.

He turned to her. “Am I?” he managed, his mouth dry.

“I’m going to make you some turmeric tea,” she said, and stood. “It helps prevent cancer, you know.”

“I’ll take a coffee, Myra,” said Neil, holding out his cup.

She took it. “Sure, Daddy.”

Eddie put down his phone. Paranormalist blogs aside, he had a job to do. “Neil?”

Neil looked at him.

Eddie couldn’t remember the last time he’d initiated a conversation with the man and he thought that Neil couldn’t either. “I was thinking about what you said about property taxes.” Over dinner, Neil had again complained about increases in property taxes, insisting that owners were being priced out of their properties and see if he wouldn’t move out of state, now that he had retired, take his resources elsewhere. He wasn’t wrong, exactly—Eddie and Myra were comfortable, no denying that, and even they felt the sting themselves in the city—but Neil always managed to turn his complaints into boasts. “Have you considered maybe renting this place?”

Neil’s face transformed with repulsion. “Deal with tenants? Where I come to _relax_?”

With great effort, Eddie stopped himself from laughing. “Short-stay rentals,” he said. “Weekend getaways, glamping, that sort of thing.”

“Glamping?” said Neil.

“Glamourous camping,” said Mackenzie, perking up enough to watch their conversation.

“I was talking to a colleague who works in LA. He knows a screenwriter who’s hunting for a writing retreat.”

“Who?” said Mackenzie.

“I didn’t get their name yet, but Lucas thought of your place. Because I’d mentioned it before “ Eddie put on his most innocent, butter-wouldn’t-melt exterior. He was astounded by himself, playing this game with his father-in-law, meddling with history itself, but his future as Richie’s friend depended on it. God, he was promoting _short-stay rentals _for the sake of Richie’s friendship. Yikes. All living was meddling with history, he supposed. But still.

Neil folded his arms. “Muck around with a bunch of pansy-ass California types? Not my idea of a good time.”

Eddie bit back a pert reply. “But if you had a property manager, a good one,” he said, “you could rent it out and not have to deal with any of the hassle, just try it out.”

“Hmm,” said Neil, thoughtful. Myra returned from the kitchen and he took his coffee.

Eddie took his tea, which he didn’t like, and thanked his wife.

Myra settled back into her crochet. “What are you boys talking about?”

“I had an idea for some retirement income,” said Neil.

“_You _had—” Mackenzie began, but Eddie shook his head. She rolled her eyes, but subsided.

“Hey, Mackenzie?” Eddie said, having no problem with Neil appropriating the idea so long as it percolated in his consciousness.

“What?”

“Does ‘lemonade’ mean anything to you?”

She made a face at him. “Like, the drink? Why?”

Eddie narrowed his eyes, thinking. Maybe he’d got the month wrong; he’d check Richie’s note when he got home. “Nothing,” he said. “Never mind.”

“You’re up to something.” Mackenzie eyed him curiously.

“Who? _Me?_” said Eddie.

**A confession — Vegetarian food — A pair of tickets — Coping mechanisms  
_Richie_**

At the end of March, Richie was held up in Chicago with Pete and the manager of The Hemingford Theatre, finalizing the details for his first all-original solo show. The prospect was both nerve-wracking and thrilling, but it also meant, since he couldn’t explain that he’d planned a long weekend based on the previous year’s Easter, that he and Sergeyevna didn’t leave until after lunch on Friday. Dizzy with dry-eyed fatigue when he arrived very early on Saturday morning, he still stopped at the mailbox—just to check—and was rewarded with a letter, as well as a blindsiding shock.

_ Richie, _

_ I have a confession to make. Please don’t be mad. You said before, tell me anything, so I should tell you the truth. Do you remember your birthday last year, after your show at The Comedy Club? It was me at the bar after. I meant what I said—I’ve never done anything like that before, and I didn’t go there with the intention of jumping you. I was in Chicago for work and I saw a poster for your show and I wanted to see you. And then you were so upset and I wanted to make you feel better. I hope I did. I’ve never taken a chance like that in my life. _

_ You remember when I told you how my mom thought I was my dad when she was in the hospital? There was more, but I didn’t say, because I was scared. Basically, she said she’d spent her life afraid I was gay. Imagine having your ass handed to you like that by your delirious, dying mother. It’s exactly as much fun as it sounds. So when I saw you, I had all these crazy thoughts in my head. Not that it’s bad, I don’t mean that. I just never thought about it. Isn’t that stupid of me? You know my situation, but I’ll take responsibility. I hope you can forgive me for doing that and for hiding the truth, especially when you said right off that you weren’t into guys, but I understand if you don’t. _

_ Ted _

_ PS I still wanted to send you some recipes, though. They’re vegetarian, but vegetarian gets a bad rap, okay? It’s good for you. I put the spices for the curry in a Ziploc so you can see what you think before you buy your own. _

After picking up Ted’s note, his confession, Richie sat in the driver’s seat of his car with the door open, a plastic bag full of spices in his lap, and his feet on the ground, flabbergasted. That had been Ted? He’d felt like shit that night. He’d gone along with Jenny’s joke, because why wouldn’t he, but then he’d hit his third drink and thought, _I’m turning 40 next week, I’m a fag and what the fuck have I done about it_, _my dad was 15 years into a family and a career when he was 40_, and felt suddenly that everyone in the bar could hear exactly what he was thinking. He couldn’t picture Ted’s face—it had been dark, he’d been upset, and even before he’d made the connection, separate googling of “Ted Moore” had turned up nothing—but he remembered how it felt: the clasp of Ted’s fingers, Ted’s lips against his own, the brief but awkward collision of their noses until Ted had shifted and they’d fit together so neatly. Ted had put his hand to Richie’s cheek, rested his forehead against Richie’s for a bare moment, and Richie had thought, _You need to hold onto this feeling, Tozier. This one has to last you. _He’d followed Jenny to a club afterward, and then another, and then, for only the third, maybe fourth, time in his life, he’d done cocaine with her, plain as day off their fucking table, and the next morning he’d woken sweating with Jenny beside him, terrified that it had been a set-up and his lip-lock would be all over the Internet. That fear faded, with time, but his desire didn’t. It never had.

Everything he’d done in his life that hadn’t killed him when it might have, hadn’t flooded the tabloids or tanked his career when it should have. How had the Losers Club succeeded, for a given value of success, all well-known in their fields and wealthy? Was it all clown magic? Bev had always been acutely perceptive, sensitive to both styles and style, Ben good at building things, Bill a born storyteller, Stan with an analytical mind and an innate sense of fairness that would have thrived in accountancy, and Eddie—Eddie, who had always taken care of them, had no doubt been _amazing _at his job. But had Richie ever really been funny? Who was he without It? He _wanted _to be good at his job. He was working, struggling, and he wanted so badly to be good for real, to sweat for it and have something to show for himself. How could he start over, though, when a simple kiss he hadn’t even initiated had taken all his courage?

The kiss had been worth it, though.

“Sergeyevna, sweetie,” he said, looking over his shoulder at her. She turned her head toward him. “What the fuck do I say to this?”

He laboured over his reply. Several times he wanted to stop and ask Bev’s advice, but the thought of trying to explain it all stayed his hand. Where would he start? On Sunday afternoon, on his fifth draft, he finally called it quits, sealed the envelope, and walked it to the mailbox before he could change his mind.

_ Ted, _

_ I’m not mad, not at ALL. The truth is, I was in a fucked-up headspace when you saw me (actually, more like my whole life), but even when I didn’t know it was you, you were one of the best things that happened to me that year. I’m glad it was you. Kind of feels it should be. Like what you said about coincidences, smoothing things out. _

_ So I should tell you—and I know you won’t be a jerk, because you’re you, but I still get freaked out, like someone will beat me up after school or post it on the Internet or something—but I’m out now. Like, OUT. So yeah. I’m gay. I mean, it took me three hours and some liquid courage to write that, but I do what I can. I know what it’s like to be in your head like that, trying to get right with yourself. All this to say, you were braver than I could have been. _

_ Thanks. _

_ Richie _

_ PS Don’t worry—I’m not going to be weird about it. I know your situation. _

_ PPS After I got your letter in Atlanta (awesome, by the way!!), it got me thinking about how we could meet for real, if you want. I’m doing a show on May 20, 2017—the first big one, solo, since I flamed out last year (little gay joke there, ha ha). I think that it will not suck. It’s going to be at The Hemingford Theatre in Chicago and if you want to come, I’ll set aside a pair of tickets for you. _

He was proud of himself for the “pair of tickets” touch. Because Richie was _not _making it weird, Ted could bring his wife and that would be fine. That would be so healthy. Extremely rational and adult and responsible. He could introduce them to the Losers, even.

***

He had grown used to the nightmares. He still woke terrified, confused, sweating and trembling, crying sometimes, but he knew what to do. Each night, before he went to bed, he put a fresh t-shirt and shorts and a glass of water outside flailing distance, and set _Foucault’s Pendulum_ on the nightstand, so that no matter where he was, he could see it and stabilize himself.

That night he dreamed of the cavern again, it was so often the cavern, and Bill failing to make it to Mike in time, Bill screaming until It took him too, Bev running after them, Ben running after her, and Richie holding Eddie back, begging him to run away. The word _coward_ was on his lips when he woke, but he sat up, changed his clothes mechanically and forced his water down. Although he was proud of his adaptation, perhaps his response wasn’t normal. Perhaps a normal person would be horrified. Well, he hadn’t had a normal life since the late eighties and he could only do his best. He wondered which room Ted and his wife had slept in when they stayed there and it occurred to him, then, that they’d probably had sex there, too. Not that such a thing mattered to him.

***

Ted didn’t make him wait: the mailbox held a note the next day.

_ Richie, _

_ I was going to make a joke about both of us having mid-life crises, but then I thought, it’s not a joke. It’s our lives and that’s worth being serious about. So even though I’m worried this’ll make you cringe, thank you. _

_ I’ll be there. Can’t wait. _

_ Ted _

_ PS I’ll be back here for Memorial Day weekend. I don’t know how it will work once I catch up with you in 2017—I don’t want to create a paradox or something—but maybe drop me a little hint as to how it all shakes out? I don’t know. Whatever works for you. _

Of course, the first thing that Richie noticed was that “I’ll be there” was not the same as “we’ll be there.” The second thing he noticed was that Ted had not said that he was anything but straight. Probably he was relieved that Richie had let it go so easily. _It was a heat-of-the-moment thing, Tozier_, he thought. _A Scooter and the Big Man situation. _Still, he whistled cheerfully and tunelessly to himself and called Pete to get the tickets set aside. Pete started to press him for details, then pulled back, and Richie appreciated his restraint. Reservation handled, he wrote another quick note, trying not to sound too eager.

_ Done and done! Pick ‘em up at the box office at your leisure. Also, send me some more recipes? I’m slowly getting better—maybe I’ll have learned to cook by the time you get here. And I’ll think of something non-spoilery. Maybe send you the ticket-stub or something. _

_ Richie _

**April showers — Baby blues — Wedding colours — Mackenzie Moore takes Manhattan  
_Eddie_**

Despite pushback from both sets of parents, Christopher and Danielle had settled on a July wedding, preferring to avoid a mad rush in the lead-up to Danielle’s due-date. “It’s like he doesn’t care how it looks,” said Myra, ruffled, once Christopher had put his foot down. She had just gotten off the phone with her mother and was cooking dinner, slamming drawers and cupboards as she went.

“How it looks won’t change how it is,” said Eddie, leaning against the counter. “That horse has left the barn. Besides, it’s not like we have the moral high ground—your parents just don’t know that.”

He had said it with a smile, trying to make her laugh, but she put the spoon in her hand on the counter, turned to face him, and said, “Well, sometimes I think we’re paying the price for that.” She flushed, then turned back to the stove.

“You mean…” Eddie’s mind raced. “Myra, what do you mean?” She didn’t think infertility was some form of divine retribution, did she? She’d never hinted at feeling so before.

“Oh, I don’t mean anything. It doesn’t matter.”

Eddie rubbed his forehead. “Myra, God isn’t punishing us.”

“I know that,” she said. “I do. I know that. But sometimes I feel… “ She turned off the element with a sharp, angry twist. “If it was my fault, I could fix it.”

At her best, that was what he admired in her—that she saw a problem, then crushed it underfoot. At the other end of the scale, though, was the plain fact that there was often no reasoning with her. “It isn’t anyone’s fault,” said Eddie, weakly. He wanted to tell her that sometimes he worried it was _his_, but he didn’t know how to say it.

In the end, though whether it was divine will, poetic justice, or blind luck, baby Esther validated her parents’ decision by arriving two weeks early and throwing everyone’s plans into disarray by simply existing.

_ In true Moore fashion_, Eddie had thought, privately, but he retracted that uncharitable thought after meeting the little thing and holding her in his arms. After all, babies needing care wasn’t a Moore thing, but a baby thing, and she was delightful: chubby and inquisitive and bald as an egg. She had the look of one shocked by the realities of existence. _Everything is new for _you. Eddie peered at her ruddy, bewildered face, him and Myra, the Moores, and Danielle’s parents all gathered in Danielle and Christopher’s small apartment. _This is the first time I’ve held you, that was the first time you went outside, you’ve never seen a dog or felt the rain, it’s raining right now, did you know, you don’t know dick-all, incredible. _Mackenzie sat next to him, fidgeting, but Eddie knew her disinterest was feigned, because she kept looking at Esther, then quickly looking away. “You want to hold her?” he asked, looking at Danielle and lifting his eyebrows, wordlessly asking her permission. Danielle nodded, but Mackenzie shook her head. “You sure? She’s very chill.”

“I don’t know what to do, though,” said Mackenzie, turning red. “I’ll be bad at it.”

“Just hold her,” said Eddie, gently transferring Esther to Mackenzie’s arms. “That’s right—support her head. And if she cries, you just give her back. There, that’s great. You’re going to be an awesome aunt.”

“She’s so warm,” said Mackenzie, quietly, curled over the baby.

“I sit there sweating,” said Danielle.

“Once I was babysitting you,” said Eddie. “At the cabin. Thought I was going to die of heatstroke, you were such a furnace.”

“You could have put her down,” said Neil, as though Eddie spoke gibberish. “That’s what mothers are for.” He and Danielle’s father snickered, and Danielle, her mother, and Ellen obligingly tittered along.

Eddie looked at Mackenzie and shook his head. _Nope_.

“Actually,” said Christopher, “I read that babies need skin-to-skin contact with fathers too.”

“Okay, that’s enough, Mommy wants her back,” said Danielle, arms out and clearly only half-joking.

Mackenzie gingerly rose to her feet and crossed the room with Esther’s head gently braced. “Thanks, Danielle,” she said. “For letting me hold her.” When she sat back down, she took out her phone, then scrolled, looking perplexed. “Eddie?”

“Shoot.”

“Beyoncé just released a new album.”

“Who?” said Neil.

“That’s… cool?” said Eddie, trying to gauge the appropriate response.

“It’s called _Lemonade_,” said Mackenzie, narrowing her eyes at him.

Eddie’s eyebrows went up. _That’ll make sense next April_, Richie had said. He shrugged with feigned nonchalance, thinking, _Can things be changed? _“Well, we insurance analysts can’t reveal all our secrets.” _Do I have any control at all?_

Myra came through from the kitchen with a tray of coffee and set it on the table at the centre of the room. She fixed two, then sat beside Eddie on the sofa. He took the offered cup and moved by the near-foreign comfort of the room—amiable chat, Mackenzie tapping away in conversation with her friends, the satisfaction of Richie’s information proving good and an unfamiliar sense of contentment he didn’t quite understand—he put his free arm around her.

She leaned into him and whispered low enough that only he could hear, she said, “You look so good with a baby, Eddie. Really, you do.”

He felt a sadness he could live with and squeezed her shoulders.

***

Although neither Eddie nor Myra were directly involved, wedding planning still proved a challenge. Ellen pawned Mackenzie off on Myra—there was no better word for it—and Myra passed the parcel to Eddie in turn. Eddie, at least, took his fraternal duties seriously, despite his private belief that his own wedding had been work enough for one lifetime, because Mackenzie needed someone in her corner. “She’s driving me to distraction,” he had heard Ellen say to Myra. “I miss my sweet little girl. _You _never gave me such trouble.”

“Mom wants me to wear this coral nightmare,” said Mackenzie, slouched and crabby in the passenger seat of Eddie’s car. She knocked her head against the headrest. “I don’t wear dresses. I haven’t worn one since my first communion. They want me to be their perfect little girl.”

Eddie flipped off an aggressive driver in the next lane, then said, “You’re not listening to me, though. You’re not in the bridal party, right?”

Mackenzie shook her head. “It’s Danielle’s sister and some of her friends. But that’s where the colour came from. _Ugh_.” She huffed. “It’s the “colour of the year” or something.”

“Technically, it’s not coral,” said Eddie. “It’s rose quartz. And serenity.”

“How do you know that? _Why _do you know that?”

“I read the wedding invitation and also follow the news,” said Eddie. “You should try it some time.” He had also spent the previous evening googling variations on “what to wear to weddings if you hate dresses” with his browser switched to private mode and had pulled together a shortlist of potential shops. At least they lived in New York and he could throw money at the problem. “She and your brother want us to be colour coordinated for family photos.”

“Whatever. Where are we going, anyway? You said you needed my help.”

“We’re going to get you a wedding outfit you like. And some other clothes if you want.”

“You tricked me,” said Mackenzie. “I told Mom I didn’t want to shop. I _told her._” She was near tears. “I don’t like clothes. I’m not into fashion.”

“You don’t have to be into fashion to wear clothes you like,” said Eddie, eyeing the line of the curb while he parallel parked. Taxis were more efficient—the shops he wanted were all over—but he did his own driving unless there was no other choice. “_I’m _not into fashion, but I know what kind of clothes I like to wear. You feel better when you’re comfortable.”

“I wear my school uniform, which is a skirt and I hate it, or jeans,” said Mackenzie. “That’s it. Can I wear jeans to the wedding?”

“Look, you’re not getting out of this wedding and you’re going to have to wear something that’s not jeans.”

“_Ugh_.”

“So,” Eddie continued, “let’s find you something that you want, first and foremost, and that’ll also keep the bride and your mom happy.”

“We won’t find anything,” said Mackenzie. She hopped out, slamming the door behind her.

In the first shop, Eddie went to the counter and handed over his phone with the browser open to the Pantone “Color of the Year” page. “We’re looking for something for an indoor wedding with these colours, but no dresses,” he said. “For my sister here.”

“What are you _doing_?” Mackenzie hissed from behind him.

He was taking a calculated risk, and his research had included calling ahead, explaining his needs, and getting a read on whether each shop would help or hinder his objectives. It was not in his nature to be embarrassed by himself: he had precise medical needs, dietary requirements, and extremely specific preferences for hotels, airplanes and everything else, and he made these known without a care for what other people thought. While he knew his habits made Mackenzie cringe, he wanted to show her that it was okay, both possible and normal, to ask for what she wanted and expect reasonable accommodation.

The clerk scrolled through the page, then returned it. “We’ve got a couple options you can try,” he said. “Some cigarette pants, some leggings, some blouses…” He swept through the shop, pulling things from the racks, while Mackenzie hung back near the counter. “I’ll put these in the change-room for you, then leave you alone.”

“If you hate them we’ll go,” said Eddie, drawing near to her and dropping his voice. “We can leave now, if you want.”

“I feel dumb,” she said, very quietly. But the clerk had very sensibly melted away and with no one else in the shop (a stroke of good fortune, Eddie thought), Mackenzie disappeared into the change-room. She was gone 20 minutes—Eddie didn’t push her—and when she came out in her own clothes, said, flatly, “I like the pants, I guess, but they didn’t fit.”

“You want to get a different size or go somewhere else?”

She shrugged.

“Let’s try somewhere else,” said Eddie. “We can come back later if we want.”

The next shop was better. The clerk there suggested wide-legged trousers and a jumpsuit, both of which Mackenzie recoiled from, but also a blue plaid button-down shirt that Eddie knew she was fond of by how wistfully she noted that it wasn’t appropriate for the wedding. He bought it for her anyway, along with a pair of cuffed pants and a set of suspenders he’d caught her admiring when he returned from a quick run to the Starbucks next door. At the third shop, as the clerk pulled an assortment of clothes in the shades they were after, Mackenzie said, “I really don’t like pink.”

[[Link to illustration on Tumblr](https://andloawhatsit.tumblr.com/post/613326864080109568)] 

“I don’t blame you,” he said, aching to see her assert herself on their least flexible criteria. “But we’re all wearing pink—sorry, rose quartz. Even your brother. Even me: my shirt.”

Mackenzie made a face.

“Here’s the thing,” said Eddie. “I want you to be able to be the person you are, and feel comfortable and feel safe. Are you going to be comfortable with people bugging you about why you’re not in the same colours as the rest of the family? I’m talking about rude great-aunts with back-handed compliments, not the other stuff. Hey, look at me?”

She did, though her cheeks were red.

“It’s not about hiding. I know you would feel better if you could bring Emily.” The week before, Mackenzie had shown Eddie a picture on her phone of a blonde girl with curly hair and braces: Emily, her classmate and her girlfriend.

“I can’t bring Emily,” said Mackenzie, glaring at him “Obviously.”

“It is incredibly fucked that anyone might think it’s their business to comment on the deeper meaning of wearing pants to a wedding, Mack, but because that’s the kind of family we’ve got and that’s the kind of family Danielle’s got, I just want you to be safe. From what you’ve said, I think you’re not ready to have this out with them, but if you—”

“No!” said Mackenzie. Breathing fast, she pushed her hair, mussed and loose around her head as always, back from her face.

“Okay. That’s okay,” said Eddie, firmly. “That’s _fine_. It’s up to you. I know this sucks, okay? Believe me: I know.

“You don’t know,” said Mackenzie, but she squared her shoulders. “Okay.” She gestured to the pair of light grey trousers and matching blazer she’d just tried on. “I like these. Maybe with a pink shirt, like you? Sorry, _rose quartz_.”

“You feel good in that, though? You feel comfortable?”

She nodded.

“Done,” said Eddie.

“You promise you’ll be there?”

“I promise,” he said, and pulled out his wallet. They went back to the first shop, after that, and bought a pale pink button-down shirt, a tan one, another plaid, and a pair of blue Oxfords, and then drove home. Mackenzie sat with the bags in her lap, smiling and occasionally peering into one or another as if to reassure herself that the new clothes were still there, and Eddie was smugly satisfied with himself when their selections garnered both Ellen and Danielle’s approval. Ellen gushed over anything Rogan-Marsh and he’d planned accordingly. He was very good at risk assessment.

**Not about Eddie (II) — Chopping onions — Growing up  
_Richie_**

Richie propped his phone against the microwave so he could see Bev’s video call from his position at the counter, chopping onions and garlic for a pasta recipe from Ted.

“So, a sold-out show,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“Actually, pretty good,” said Richie. “I never thought I’d go in for that back-to-nature stuff, but sitting in a cabin while the snow falls actually makes for a pretty nice writing environment. At least more so than the view of the alley from my place.”

“Even by yourself?”

“Are you still stuck on that?” Richie turned from his cutting board and toward the camera, where Bev was giving him a thoughtful look. “Yes, by myself. No big surprise there.”

“You’ve been cagey about it,” she said. “Ben and I did wonder.”

“Wonder no more.” He scraped his cutting board over the frying pan, where the food hissed and sputtered. “Cabin life is but that of a man and his dog.”

“Cabin life,” said Bev. “What about the rest of the time?”

Though Ted had accepted his invitation, Richie didn’t want to say anything to his friends. It was too hard to explain. But dammit, he was happy. “I’ve been talking to someone,” he said, and upturned a can of chopped tomatoes over his pan. “But it’s not a _thing_. It’s just friends.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bowl on his table pressed into service to hold Ted’s letters.

“That sounds like something.”

“It’s not,” said Richie. He stirred his sauce, conscious of the silly smile on his face. “This is why I didn’t want to mention it. Because it’s not romantic—it’s someone I met in Rosendale, and it’s nice to have a friend. I mean, y’all are still number one. Anyway, he’s funny, super sharp, and he works in, like, liability policy, but not for a big corporation, because he likes helping people; and he and his wife live in New York—”

“He’s _married_?”

“Marsh, it’s not like that! Jeez, how low is your opinion of me?” Richie was, however, hard-pressed to explain exactly _how_ it was not like that. He didn’t even know Ted’s wife’s name. He hoped Bev wouldn’t ask.

“You said he has a wife.”

“Yes, but we’re not _doing_ anything.”

“But you like him.”

Richie thought of the Skydive patio, the cold February air and the warmth Ted had radiated, and his shoulders slumped. “Fuck, I like him so much, Bev.”

“I’m not passing judgement.”

“Kind of doesn’t feel that way.”

“You could be fucking 50 married guys, honey, and I’d still love you.”

“Thanks. I think.” Richie set the sauce to simmer and turned up the element heating a pot of water. “To be clear, Ted and I are not fucking.”

“It’s just—you deserve someone who can and will be honest and proud about their relationship with you. That doesn’t necessarily mean heading a pride parade or coming out to everyone all the time. Shit, you don’t have to tell me or justify yourself to me, obviously, but—” She made a face, obviously struggling for words. “Privacy and hiding aren’t the same, and you deserve someone that won’t make you feel bad.”

“He doesn’t,” said Richie. “Bev, I appreciate what you’re saying and it’s good advice for me, generally, but there is _no _romantic relationship here.” Then, because she’d always had the uncanny ability to hit some sort of idiot-honesty switch in him with deadly accuracy, he said, “We sort of kissed? Once. No, don’t look at me like that! You don’t understand! It was so nice! Like, the nicest thing that’s ever happened to me! It was a one-off thing!”

“Okay. I’m not actually going to tell you how to live your life.”

“I can see you suppressing that urge for 79 seconds, max,” said Richie.

“But is this about Eddie?”

“No,” said Richie, automatically. Of course it wasn’t. Was it?

“An unavailable married guy with an acerbic wit and an insurance background?”

“Of course it sounds bad when you say it like that.” He remembered to salt the boiling water, then dumped his pasta in to cook.

“What’d you say his name was?”

“It’s—” Richie faltered. “Ted.”

The restraint of expression was obvious in her face. “But it’s not about Eddie.”

“It isn’t, Nosy Parker,” said Richie. “I mean, it is in the sense that I’m not going to forget him.”

“Of course not!”

“So that colours everything, obviously. But that’s it.” Richie stirred his sauce, finding it easier to speak when he was doing something with his hands. He wasn’t used to letting his feelings out. “He was a big deal for me, Bev. He was maybe it for me. That doesn’t go away.”

“I understand,” said Bev. “So the real question is: do you _want_ to date? You don’t have to, you know. You can for fun, or because you want to get married and have 2.5 children, or because you really love dick, or you can skip it, because it’s a lot of work.”

Richie snorted derisively and gestured at himself, wearing an apron over a t-shirt and sweatpants. “_Who_, exactly, wants a piece of this 40-year-old gay-virgin ass? Please be serious.” Kind of telling on himself there, but he couldn’t lie convincingly enough to make his friends believe he was regularly pulling. Or pulling at all, ever. Not that he’d tried, but he was busy. He had other things on his mind. Oh dear, he’d made himself sad.

“I _am_ being serious. Despite my hundred-and-one questions, you don’t actually have to prove anything to me or anyone else. If you don’t want to, that’s one thing, but if you think you don’t deserve—”

“Beep beep,” said Richie, wiping his nose. “Sorry. Onions.”

“Okay,” said Bev. “I’m sorry I upset you, Richie.”

He sniffled. Definitely the onions and not his fucking feelings. “So how much does your dog miss my dog?

Ben popped into frame. “So much, actually. Hey, Richie.”

“Hola, Benjamin. Have you been eavesdropping while your girl roasts me?”

Ben held up his hands. “Don’t look at me—I just got in the door. That communications centre refuses to build itself, for some reason. Bev, don’t roast Richie.” He kissed her cheek. “And Sergeyevna’s rabbit toy you left here at Christmas? He won’t let me take it out of his basket.”

“God, I have the cutest and most lovable dog in the _world_—no offence.”

“Agree to disagree,” said Ben.

***

While Richie ate his pasta, which was _delicious_, he thought about what he’d told Bev. He _did_ like Ted. He liked him a lot. He liked Ted’s sense of humour. He liked that Ted loved his sister and wanted to help people. He liked confiding in Ted and he liked Ted confiding in him. He liked Ted’s interest in physics, even if he himself didn’t get it more than half the time. He liked that Ted was at least as eager for the next letter as he was. He liked the way that Ted had caught his breath with a small huff of pleasure when Richie touched the side of his neck. Despite their kiss, though, Richie hadn’t considered his feelings through the lens of attraction. _Typical_, he thought. _You repressed dumbass. _But the only barometer against which he could measure his emotions was his relationship with Jenny, an unending live-action roleplay set in a minefield, and his relationship with Eddie, indelibly marked with the searing urgency of childhood. He did love Ted, but it didn’t feel as it had with Eddie. Which had its benefits, he had to allow, because his fucked-up psyche had made loving Eddie _agony_. “I guess I had to grow up some time,” he said to Sergeyevna, and chewed his food thoughtfully, perplexed.

**Memorial Day — May flowers — The thing with feathers (II)  
_Eddie_**

Once Neil made a decision, he moved fast. Eddie had always known that the man would never give up his property, but it turned out that he found renting it out for a profit very appealing indeed, and Memorial Day weekend would be the last the Moores spent in Rosendale until his rental experiment wrapped. Myra and her mother had gone along obligingly, privately consoling each other with assurances that it was only temporary, while Chris and Danielle were too preoccupied with Esther to fuss, and Mackenzie, who was often bored in the country anyway, was buried under examinations and final papers. For his part, Eddie buzzed with nervous excitement, and on Sunday morning, he went for a run, trying to work it out. He had been deeply relieved that Richie wasn’t mad at him, that he understood that their kiss came from a place of friendship, but since future-Eddie would have made it to Richie’s show by then, it was more likely that he, present-Eddie, would have to wait a full year to talk to him again. He could do that, though, for the prize at the end. He wondered, then, if he’d get a letter from himself, and shuddered. Although he had accepted time travel into his life, that was a bit much.

Sergeyevna was rolling in the wildflowers at the end of the lane. “You better get out of here before Neil spots you,” said Eddie, but he knelt and scratched her ears anyway, despite an instinctual aversion to the grass and pollen almost certainly carpeting her fur. She flopped to her side to show her belly. “But actually, I’m glad I found you,” he said, and showed her the breakaway collar he’d bought in the city, tag stamped with the number of the veterinary clinic in Rosendale. He’d been carrying it around all weekend. “Can I put this on you? It’ll help later, I promise.” She stood, sniffed it, then licked him and let him fasten it, after which he sanitized his hands—twice. “Take care of Richie for me?” She held his eyes a moment, then dashed off. “Watch for traffic,” he called, like she could understand him.

Inside the mailbox, a crisp white envelope waited for him and he collected it with the gentle pleasure he’d dared to become accustomed to, popped the seal, and unfolded the letter.

He should have known better than to hope.

**Stage fright (II) — A pair of tickets (II) — Lucky seven — Living in the now  
_Richie_**

The show was booked. As Bev had noted, tickets had sold out and Richie had garnered a write-up in _The Tribune_, print edition, complete with an interview. (he’d done several of those, feeling his way back into the performative groove of them), while most importantly, since he had told the Losers—Patty included—he couldn’t back out. And he still didn’t know what he and present-day Ted would do about past-Ted? The mere thought was giving him a tension headache. Standing backstage at The Hemingford, he rolled his shoulders and reminded himself that he was well-rehearsed, had a few back-up plans—including spinning any chokes into a joke about July—and had actually mapped out an escape route in case things really went to shit. He heard the low rolling thunder of applause, felt the burn of the house lights, smelled his own sweat. He walked onstage. He looked out. He opened his mouth and spoke.

***

Pete wanted to go out after and even Jenny had texted him—_drawn by the smell of success_, thought Richie, spitefully—but he was tired and pleased and wanted only to see his friends, who he had invited back to his place. He’d had his nerves, of course—about the show, about what the Losers would think, what Patty would think, Ted and meeting him afterward, but he’d put all that aside and embraced the intensity and focus he had always craved and only ever found on stage.

And he’d done it. He’d lived and people had actually laughed and applauded.

Despite his invitation being rebuffed, Pete grabbed him in a hug backstage. “Well done, Rich,” he said. “Good job, man.”

“Thanks,” Richie swallowed. “Seriously, thanks.” That was enough emotion for the two of them, but he was glad he’d said it, all the same. “Can you grab my friends?”

“The gang all bunched together? Got ‘em in a car out back.”

“And the one I left tickets for?” Richie felt a spasm of unease.

Pete looked confused. “Three guys, two ladies, right? That’s all I got. Hang on.” He tapped out a message, waited, then said, “Sorry, man—that other pair was never picked up.”

“Oh,” said Richie. He shook his head briskly. “Okay. Good to go, then.”

“Rich listen.” Pete grabbed Richie’s shoulder. “Listen.”

“Listening,” he said, agitated, yearning for the door, for escape.

“You did a great job tonight, okay? And that’s no joke. This is going to do good things for you.” He brandished his phone at Richie, who could make out a string of notifications. “It’s blowing up,” he said. “In a _good_ way. I know it’s not easy for you, but be proud of yourself.”

It wasn’t easy. It physically hurt. “Thanks,” said Richie, forcing the word out.

Pete patted him on the cheek. “Go on, then. I know you want to be at home in your pajamas.”

Richie did. He’d never let himself indulge in that before—he’d had to be funny, be “on,” keep people laughing, keep them interested.

“Go on,” said Pete again, gently. “It’s okay.”

***

As promised, Bill, Ben, Bev, Mike, and Patty were all waiting in a town car outside the stage door. Bill gave him a fancy-ass pen—“for writers,” he said—while Ben, Bev, and Patty had brought flowers and Mike a page from their high school yearbook—Richie’s grad photo, complete with his assigned superlative: _most likely to win the lottery and lose the ticket_—that they had all signed.

Back at his place, he made tea and coffee. He put Ben in charge of music and Ted out of his thoughts, and whenever said thoughts reared their heads, he thought of his friends, who’d shown up for him, because they loved him. There was pain in rejection—it hurt horribly—but he’d wallowed in that long enough that he could sense it in his life, a rut in the road ready to send him spinning out. He couldn’t keep doing that. Not anymore.

By one in the morning, Ben, Bev, and Patty were playing Scrabble, which one of them must have packed, because Richie didn’t own it, while Mike leaned against the doorframe, watching with his arms crossed over his chest. Richie felt the same strange twinge he’d felt at Christmas as he followed the line of Mike’s vision to the sofa, where Bill had fallen asleep. Bill hadn’t said much, except that he didn’t want to harsh the party, so Richie figured things weren’t going well with Audra. He was torn on how much to press the issue and planned to try to get Bill alone before he flew back to LA. He chewed at his lip, then crossed the room to nudge Mike’s shoulder. “I’ve got to take Sergeyevna out. Want to come?”

Mike blinked, refocused on Richie, then raised an eyebrow and said, “Getting some ‘fresh air?’

“Uh, no,” said Richie. Then he squared his shoulders. “I quit, actually.” He shrugged, self-deprecating, trying not to hunch into himself again. “For the hundredth time.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Mike, and together, they pulled on their jackets.

Outside, only a few paces into their walk, Sergeyevna paused and lifted her leg over a telephone pole, and Richie and Mike paused, waiting for her.

“Thanks, Mike,” said Richie, because the words had been weighing on him for a while. “For what you did. Keeping the lighthouse for so long.”

Mike look surprised, but said, “You’re welcome.” Then, “You good, Rich? You seem…”

“Weirdly subdued?”

“Yeah, actually.”

Sergeyevna finished and they walked on. “I’m always like this after gigs. Drained like a battery.”

“And that’s all?” Mike’s voice held a hint of prodding.

Richie tilted his head, cracked his neck. “I invited someone tonight, but they—he—didn’t show. But I’m new and improved and emotionally stable, so like the girl said, I shook it off.”

“I’m still sorry it happened. Jeez.” He sighed. “We could have been seven again. Or if Audra was here, I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lucky seven, like we used to be,” said Mike. “I can’t help seeing the patterns. The habit’s not so easy to kick. And people still email me.”

“Email you? Why?”

“I spent so long trying to collect information about It. There were people who’d seen It, but convinced themselves it was a hallucination or a nightmare, a bad trip, all kind of things. They needed someone to talk to and, well, so did I.” He sighed. “I was so desperate. I thought I could hide behind a fake name and pour out everything that was going on in my head. “I’m sure most of my correspondents thought I was a lunatic.”

Discomfited by Mike’s self-derision, Richie said, "But maybe you reached someone who needed you. For real, even if it was only one, that’d be good, wouldn’t it?”

“You should be this nice to yourself.”

“Pshaw,” said Richie, flapping a hand at him. He thought of Ted again. _It’s okay to be mad_. “We weren’t our, you know, best selves when were apart.” He rubbed the back of his neck and thought about getting high with Jenny, how he hadn’t cared where she got her stash or if she got picked up, and an old bit popped into his head—misogynist as fuck, as the kids said. He’d disliked it, but hadn’t fought it—in fact, he’d used it more than once. “You were trying to help people, though. You should be proud of that.”

Mike shrugged.

“Do you think it’s meant to be?” Richie bit his lip, trying to put his thought into words. “Not destiny. Just that we had to be together. That we were meant to find each other. Maybe that _is _destiny. I don’t know.”

“I always thought so,” said Mike. “I was watching you all from the outside. I had to think I’d get to see you again someday. Even if that meant It. Anyway, I’m sorry, Rich. You deserve better than someone who’ll stand you up.”

“Thanks,” said Richie, softly. They had rounded the block and he dug in his pocket for his keys. “Mike, how do you stop living in the past?” He held the fob against the reader, resting his other hand on the door handle.

“Fuck if I know, Rich. If I knew how to do that, I wouldn’t still be—” He stopped suddenly. Stuck his hands in his pockets and turned away.

Richie put his keys away. He thought about Mike in his living room, about hanging Christmas lights while Bill and Audra walked together outside, and about Mike at Hallowe’en. He had thought that Mike was only pretending to have been surprised to hear of Bill and Bev’s kiss; he had thought that Mike had no secrets from Bill. “Mikey,” he said, heart thumping. “You have to know that you can’t possibly be more embarrassing than me, so tell me the truth. How long?”

“Rich, leave it alone.”

“How long?”

“A long time,” said Mike, flatly.

Richie thought of the way that Bev had held him when he wanted both nothing more and nothing less. He opened his arms and Mike fell into them. “I’m sorry, man.” Sergeyevna pawed at his shin.

“_You_ didn’t do anything.”

“I’m sorry it’s happening,” said Richie, rubbing Mike’s back the way that Bev had rubbed his. “It sucks _so _much. I don’t want to exaggerate, but there’s probably no one alive that knows that better than me.”

Mike made a noise that was half laugh, half wet gasp. “I think we just have to do it,” he said. “To stop living in the past, I mean. I got in my car and left Derry. You went out on that stage tonight.”

“I guess,” said Richie. “I was hoping for something more decisive.” He gave Mike another hug, then let go. “My impulse is to say we should go back to my place and get wasted, but Richie 2.0 is trying for a healthier lifestyle. You want to walk around? There’s a 24-hour bakery 15 minutes that way, if you want.” He pointed down the street. “They always give Sergeyevna these dog-friendly cookies.”

“Sure,” said Mike, and sniffed, then dragged his sleeve across his eyes.

“Did you tell him?”

“_No_,” said Mike. “I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t _talk_ to people for a long time, so I didn’t know, I _don’t_ know how. He’s got a wife, he _wants_ to have a wife. Would you have told Eddie?” He winced. “Sorry.”

“No, no,” said Richie. “It’s a fair question.” It hurt, but it was fair. “I don’t know. When he got me out of the deadlights, I was thinking about Ben, when Bev was in, you know, and I think I might have. Kissed him. Eddie. Tried to.” He shrugged. Took a deep breath. He was able to think of that time without panicking, but it was a near thing. “We’ll never know. And I…” He sighed. “I don’t know what he would have wanted.” He patted Mike’s arm and tried to banish their ghosts. “Come on. I’m going to buy you a coffee and a piece of cake the size of your head. What a jerk I am, so wrapped up in my own—”

“You’re not—”

“Shut up and let me apologize,” said Richie. “We’re in the same fucking boat. I ought to have been looking out for you. We should get t-shirts. _Fuck Ben_, am I right?”

Mike chuckled. “You don’t mean that.”

Richie sighed theatrically. “No, I don’t. He’s the total package, alas.”

They walked on. “I’m too old for coffee after midnight,” said Mike.

“Herbal tea, then, Grandpa,” said Richie.

Richie and Mike took a box of pastries back to the condo with them, in case the late-night munchies had overtaken the other Losers, but Scrabble had been put away by the time they got in the door and Patty was buttoning her jacket. Ben, Bev, and Mike were staying over, while Patty had booked a room at the Marriott and Bill, who had previously insisted that he was all right in a hotel, Richie didn’t need to go to any trouble, was still asleep on the sofa.

“We didn’t have the heart to move him,” said Bev, when Mike asked if he’d left.

“Brunch tomorrow, though?” said Richie, giving Patty a hug.

“Of course,” she said, and kissed his cheek.

Ben and Bev retired, then, to get cleaned up and conk out in the spare room, and Richie unfolded the futon in his office for Mike. He hoped it would be comfortable: when Mike had stayed before, he’d taken the spare room, but with that occupied, Richie had googled “futons for tall people” and only bought one after reading dozens of reviews. He was sweating by the time he’d got the thing sorted, but pleased with himself all the same, and went back to the living room to find Mike coaxing a sleep-addled Bill into lying down properly. Mike flicked out the spare blanket slung over the back of the sofa and tucked it around Bill’s shoulders.

“His back’s going to regret that tomorrow,” Richie whispered, as Mike turned out the lamp and crept away. “We’re not 13 anymore. And he didn’t brush his teeth—Eddie would have _words _for him.” He patted Mike’s shoulder. “You okay? Not cosmically, but for tonight?”

Mike nodded.

Richie held out his arms and got another Mike Hanlon Special, a hug that meant business.

“Sorry,” said Mike.

“Jesus, _why_?” said Richie, honestly at a loss. “You should patent that fucking hug, Mikey, not apologize” He patted Mike’s cheek, because Mike was his friend, because the men they loved were married and they couldn’t get back the time they’d lost, because moving on was difficult and they both kept fucking it up, because they were lonely together.

Mike ducked his head, shy. “It’s not—I’m not… too much?”

Richie shook his head. “Hey, Mikey, I liked it. I’m not kidding about the patent.”

Mike exhaled. “I just have all this feeling. For Bill, you know, and because I love you”—he spoke haltingly—“I mean, all of you.”

Richie understood. He needed to stop hovering on the edge of life. “You’re a good person, bro,” he said. “Let’s make a new pact. If we’re both still single at 50, let’s get married.”

“You are so _you_,’” said Mike, with a soft laugh. “‘_Bro_.’”

“Shush,” said Richie, not because he was afraid of waking their friends, but because he was most comfortable immersed in genial teasing. “Deal?”

“Deal.” Mike shook. “Night, Rich.”

“Night, Mikey.”

Behind his bedroom door, Richie dressed for bed. The cleaning service he’d hired to tackle his place before his guests arrived had taken on his bedroom as well: the sheets were clean and crisp, the pillows fluffed, and there was nary a dust bunny in sight. His heart flipped, then, because he realized that he’d forgotten to tell them to leave the sock drawer alone. He yanked it open, but found he needn’t have worried: along one side, his socks and shorts were neatly arranged—god, he ought to tip them again—and along the other, undisturbed, sat Eddie’s shirt. He touched it lightly, soothing himself, and was climbing into bed when he realized that a year before he couldn’t have been the friend Mike had needed that night. “Well, shit,” he said aloud. He turned out the light, but lay awake for some time.

***

Bill left early the next morning to shower and change, but promised to join them for brunch, and Bev and Ben soon followed, intending to collect both him and Patty. Bringing up the rear, Richie and Mike drove to the restaurant together in comfortable silence—to Richie’s surprise, since he had never before enjoyed silence in his life.

“You won’t, uh, you won’t… say anything, will you?” said Mike, scratching his head.

Richie braked mid-turn in the restaurant lot, spurring furious honking from the driver behind them. Flustered, he finished parking, then said, “No way, man. I’d never do that.”

“I know that,” said Mike. “It’s just that I…” He trailed off.

Richie turned off the car. “No, I get it. Believe me. Did you ever”—he blushed—“wonder about me?”

“To be honest,” said Mike, “I didn’t.”

Richie was both comforted and disgruntled—with himself, not with his friend. “That’s kind of a relief, actually, because if I went through all that repression and still wasn’t fooling anyone… That would just be cruel on God’s part.”

“I know, right?” Mike was speaking with his hands. “Thank fuck I’m not the only one that thought that. Shit, that’s messed up, but you know what I mean. I kept telling myself that our relationships were so intense because of what we’d been through, so I couldn’t judge them like other people’s. But then I had no idea what to think. It’s not like I had a great barometer anyway, and at the end of the day, we loved each other. Of course we did.”

“Lucky seven,” said Richie. “I wouldn’t… Mikey, I wouldn’t change it. I wish some things had been different, obviously, there’s so much I wish I’d done better, and if I could, like, snap my fingers and knock the clown out of existence entirely, I would, god, can you imagine, but I don’t—“ He was rambling, struggling to marshal his thoughts, and took a deep breath. “What I mean is, if it had to happen, I’d rather be with you than not.” _Now I’m going to have to kill this fucking clown._ Maybe he _had_ been brave, in his own way. Huh.

Mike wiped his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve— Richie didn’t call attention to it—and said, “To be fair, I didn’t believe a single word about your sexual conquests, either.”

Richie snorted. “And that, kids, is the difference between possibility and probability. Come on—let’s eat.”

Bill was finishing a call in the lobby when they walked in, looking shaken, but schooled his features—perhaps a trick he’d learned from Audra—and said, “Finally! I’m _starving_.”

Mike went ahead to see if the others had landed a table, but Richie hung back. “Everything okay, Big Bill?”

“It will be,” said Bill, nodding. “I know it will be.”

Richie let things percolate for a week, then took Mike’s advice: he just did it. He loaded his and Sergeyevna’s things into his car, got behind the wheel, and drove. There was no rush. Memorial Day weekend was still a few days out, so Richie drove and drove—through Gary, through Elyria, through Youngstown, through Scranton, and all the way to the mailbox, where he deposited his last letter, let Sergeyevna stretch her legs, then hopped back in the car and turned straight around again.

He thought, _I’ll drive across the country and I’ll show up on Bill’s doorstep and see what California can do for me, get my head out of my ass and see what’s going on with my friends._

He thought, _I’ll hit Montreal and I’ll pick up a ridiculously handsome French man in a bar, and we’ll have a wild sex weekend, punch this v-card once and for all, and he’ll be so good for me, so good to me._

He thought, _I’ll go down to Mexico and invest in a timeshare, show Sergeyevna the ocean._

He thought, _I’ll just drive, me and Sergeyevna, I’ve got the money, I’ve got the time, and we’ll stop in every national park we find and I’ll post pictures of her on Instagram, because she’s the cutest dog in the world._

But really, all he wanted was to go home, so he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes:
> 
>   * Discussion of infidelity (Eddie kissing Richie).
>   * Mackenzie has a heated discussion with Eddie about being closeted to her family. (Mackenzie is being asked to wear clothes/colours she finds distressing to a stressful family event.)
>   * Eddie and Myra experience and discuss infertility.
> 
> I don't pretend to speak for Bruce Springsteen or Clarence Clemons. Here's [ one article ](https://www.123rf.com/photo_129136965_stock-vector-https://www.gq.com/story/this-fucked-me-up-bruce-springsteen-singing-about-clarence-clemons) about their friendship and the way Springsteen speaks of it.
> 
> I also post my embroidery on [Tumblr](https://andloawhatsit.tumblr.com/tagged/embroidering-my-feelings-again).
> 
> Thank you for reading!  
  
**Next chapter: fish or cut bait, Maggie Morris-Tozier versus the Gutter Press, a five-alarm 9-1-1 emergency, getting served, Schrödinger’s comedian, people in their forties.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, because the last two chapters are finished, I'd like to share them with you now, rather than stick to my planned posting schedule and let them languish on a flash drive. Working on this story has brought me a lot of happiness--I hope it brings some to you too! Thank you for reading.

# SUMMER

_ok i admit it  
i've been drifting  
dreaming the hours away_

_dreamin' of love  
the gentle kind  
i don't have to prove myself  
all of the time_

_— The Roches, “Move”_

**Fish or cut bait — Cultural Catholicism (III) — Coffee and cream — Secrets (IV) — Kamenosuke Sato  
_Eddie_**

On the last day of Eddie Kaspbrak’s marriage, he woke at 6:00 a.m. to the clang of his usual alarm. He had bare feet, because he had kicked off his socks in the night, and he itched all over, despite his soft bamboo-cotton pajamas, though it wasn’t the pajamas that chafed him, but what he knew he had to do. He heard Myra in the kitchen and the water running as she filled the Keurig, and he went to the bathroom, locked the door, and read Richie’s letter again.

_ Ted, _

_ The show went pretty well. It even got good reviews outside Chicago and it hit Twitter okay, too. Apparently my “sophomore effort surprises and delights.” Who knew? I’m sorry you couldn’t make it, but I was thinking. It wasn’t fair of me to have tried to lock you down like that. You’ve got your own life to live, your own family, and I should stop living in the past. I need to, even though it sucks ass. Because I’ve never met you, not really, but I think I have been in love with you, I love you, and I can’t put that on you anymore. I don’t want to ruin what you’ve got going for you, man. I won’t be back here again. _

_ Still friends. Still glad to know you. Wouldn’t change that. _

_ Richie _

“‘I love you,’” Eddie read aloud, whispering to himself. The words were strange. He had never been part of a family that didn’t treat love like currency in a cash-poor state. He had never said those words without feeling like he was making payments on an insurmountable debt. Like he had to say it, had to show it in word and deed over and over, on demand, simply to be noticed at all. “‘I love you,’” he repeated. His stomach turned and he fell to his knees, retching over the toilet.

“Eddie?” Myra knocked on the door. She tried the handle, but Eddie had turned the lock. “What’s going on?”

Eddie spat into the bowl. “Flu, maybe,” he said.

“I’ll make you a doctor’s appointment,” she said through the door. “You’ve been out of sorts since Memorial Day. Maybe you picked something up at the cabin. That dirty little dog was hanging around again.”

“Fine,” said Eddie, when that was the last thing he wanted. All winter he’d been patting himself on the back for the way he’d worked to support Mackenzie, for the good brother he was, the good ally, the way that his friendship with Richie was friendship alone and healthy for it, and not once had he noticed the truth flashing its ass at him the whole time: he was queer as a three-dollar bill. He’d taken every dig from Neil and Christopher, every side-eyed flicker of confusion when he referenced his wife in conversation at work, Myra casually noting that he wasn’t “traditionally masculine”—all because he _liked _himself, goddammit. He wasn’t afraid of who was. But that wasn’t entirely true. He retched again, his stomach cramping painfully. He hadn’t wanted it to be true, because he hadn’t wanted people like Sonia and Neil to be _right_ about him. He’d wanted to make his own way. He’d married Myra to prove a point to people who held him in contempt and _he hadn’t even known it_. He moaned and retched again, but his stomach was empty.

Then he stood on unsteady legs, flushed the toilet, and took a shower. Then he got dressed and took an Advil and his vitamins. _Fish or cut bait, Kaspbrak, _he thought, assessing his small suited form in the mirror. He went to the kitchen where Myra was drinking coffee and eating toast and jam, and with his shaking hands clasped behind his back, he asked her for a separation.

Several hours later, Myra having gone to work while he had called in sick, he sat alone at the same kitchen table, staring at the French press he’d gone out and bought on a whim because he missed real coffee with real cream and feeling strangely calm. Feeling relieved. Yes, that was it. He was relieved. “Happy birthday to me,” he said, aloud, though that wasn’t until the end of the month.

Myra had been horrified. The Moores “didn’t divorce,” of course, but confronting that reality had been wrenchingly painful, turning his put-upon stomach with misery and guilt. He knew he was unhappy and strongly suspected that she was as well, but he was at least willing to end it, while Myra, though she hadn’t set foot in a church on her own initiative outside Christmas and Easter since their wedding, would sooner have cut off her own hand than file for divorce. To her, marriage was an immutable law, a terminal condition.

“We can’t,” she had said, looking at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Yes, we can,” said Eddie. Then, because if Richie could do it, so could he, he said, “Myra, I’m gay.”

Her mouth hung open. “What? No, you’re not.”

He laughed, unable to help himself. It had taken years for him to figure it out, to accept it. “Yes, I am.”

“Eddie, please, please don’t say such horrible things.” She had gone pale. “Are you sick?”

“What? No.”

“Have you been—“ She put her hand to her chest. “Have you been sleeping around? Do I need—Eddie, _how could you_?”

“_No_.” He held up his hands. “Nothing like that. I promise.”

“You promised some other things, too,” said Myra. “Marriage vows, for instance. You said you’d make things okay.”

“Look at me,” said Eddie. “I _swear_.”

“Is there someone else?”

He shook his head. He was all alone. In a confessional convulsion, he said, “I kissed someone. Once. After my mom died. That’s all, but I’m still sorry, Myra. I’m so sorry. For everything. I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding, moving ahead with some scheme that didn’t include him. She pushed her plate away, toast abandoned. “That’s okay. We can be okay. Daddy had an affair once.” She wrung her hands. “With a woman, I mean! When I was in high school. But that’s how I know things can be okay. They’re still together, aren’t they?”

Eddie was so astonished that he didn’t try to argue that he himself hadn’t had an affair, per se. “I didn’t know that.”

“I promised not to tell anyone,” said Myra, like that was a reasonable burden for a man to place on his teenage daughter’s shoulders. “And I didn’t.”

She was breaking his heart. He’d lost his sense of her inner life so long before, but for a moment, everything they were came into painful clarity. “We can’t stay together,” said Eddie. “You shouldn’t be married to someone who’s gay, sweetheart. That’s not a logical leap.” She didn’t argue the point and for no reason he could understand, his eyes prickled with tears. She wasn’t surprised, not really.

“Well,” she said. “I _knew_ something was going on with you. I _knew_ something was going to happen to you.” She wept at the table, then, and slapped his hand away when he tried to go to her, and then she dressed, and then she left.

***

She was staying with her parents, leaving Eddie in the apartment until he got a place of his own. Three weeks in and still too ashamed to tell her parents the truth, she had so far stuck to telling her family that he was in LA on a transfer assignment and she didn’t want to be at home by herself. Sitting alone in the living room, his new morning routine, he drank his coffee. It tasted very, very good.

If he called Myra, begged her forgiveness, she’d take him back. He was certain of that.

But he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t. It was June 30th: he was forty years old and he was starting over. He’d written his letter to Richie, one last reply, the night before, and would drive his promise to the mailbox that very day.

Shit.

Someone knocked at the apartment door.

**Maggie Morris-Tozier versus the Gutter Press — Sons and Mothers (III) — Richie Tozier’s Secret Box of Homosexual Yearning — A five-alarm, 9-1-1 emergency — Spock’s Brain (II) — Kamenosuke Sato (II)  
_Richie_**

In late June, Richie answered a knock at his door surprised that his delivery had been so fast—he’d been cooking for himself all month and figured he’d earned it—and instead found his mother, with two small rollers at her side.

“So you’re a homosexual?”

“Mom!” Richie gaped at her like a netted fish. “What—why—what are you doing here?”

“I have to find out my _own_ son, my only child, is a homosexual when Janice Wilson comes to my door with a tabloid magazine. You know how I feel about the gutter press, Richard. And you told the Twitter _last year_? Janice assumed I knew!”

“Can you get out of the hallway, please?” said Richie. “Wait, what? What tabloid?” He was, oddly, slightly flattered though more generally nauseated at the prospect. What had he been doing that had garnered their attention? He had the sudden thought, irrational but horrifying, that pictures of him and Ted had surfaced at last, but that seemed highly unlikely, more than a year on. What else could it have been, though? His sex life was exclusively, ahem, self-focused—not that he minded, really: the return of desire after the previous summer had been a comfort, surprisingly so, marking the advent in his life of pleasure no longer hampered by quite the same old burden of shame. He tried to wave Maggie in, but she stood firm.

“It’s not as though I can tell them apart. It was a photograph of you, late at night, outside somewhere—with a tall man and a dog.”

_Oh, shit, me and Mike, _thought Richie. _I guess it could be worse._

_ “_When did you get a dog? Is that her?” Maggie clucked at Sergeyevna, who had come to the door to investigate. “Anyhow, I’d heard some rumblings, I keep my hand in with some of the up-and-comers, you know, but as with Janice, I sent them away with a flea in their ear for encouraging this country’s obsession with gossip and innuendo. You’re not going to answer my question?”

“Not where all my neighbours can hear, no. Are you coming in or are you leaving?” He held up two fingers. “Two options.”

“You know, I always wanted a daughter,” said Maggie.

“I can recall you mentioning that once or twice,” said Richie. “I’m still not a daughter, Mom.”

“I know that! But I suppose that if I’d had a daughter, I could have a son-in-law, and that’s still a possibility, yes?” She patted his cheek.

Richie pulled back and dragged his hands down his face. He was too sober for the experience presently engulfing him. “Theoretically, yes.”

“It’s a shame about Jenny, though, because she was a lovely girl. She was so concerned about you last summer, you know.”

Richie supposed that his habit of nervous talking, no silence allowed, had to have come from somewhere, and it sure has hell hadn’t come from Went, who Richie was pretty sure chose dentistry because it meant your clients were physically incapable of speaking to you. He covered his mouth with his fist and tried to breathe deeply. “Since we’ve established that people can and do trade information about me for money, can we take this _out _of the hall now?”

She pursed her lips in distaste, then said, “Entertainment news is a disgrace to the form.”

“Small-town New England’s answer to Katharine Graham,” he said, rolling his eyes. He grabbed her bags and muscled them inside. “Who let you in?”

“You have nice, friendly neighbours,” she said.

“Who are probably taping this conversation,” said Richie, and closed the door.

Glad that he had put Ted’s letters away, he sat her at the table and made a fresh pot of coffee, perfectly content to overuse the coffee grinder as a means of pre-empting conversation, then dug his phone out of the sofa where he’d lost it the night before. Intending to text the Losers he instead found a string of notifications: a missed call from Bev, a text from Ben that said, <hey, everything’s cool and we know you’ve got it handled, but can you call Bev when get this?>, a message from Bill that said, <Can you call me, please?>, a missed call and a voicemail from Mike, and the same from Pete. He rubbed the back of his neck. Clearly, the photograph had made a splash. He opened the browser and allowed himself _one _Google search, just to confirm his suspicions. He knew he could barely handle one crisis at a time: Maggie first, then the rest of it.

When the kettle finished, he poured hot water through the French press, then texted his friends, <Can’t talk right now. Am good—not melting down. Mike and I got creeped on by some hack while we were walking Sergeyevna when y’all were here. They must have been shopping it around for a while, ugh. Can’t believe I’m a commodity. Will text later.> He texted Pete, too, <Dealing with family issue, will call you asap> and Mike, <Assume you called about the photo? My mom showed up unexpectedly and I have to deal with her, but are you okay? I am fine and will help you with this. You don’t have to answer anyone’s calls or anyone’s questions unless you want to.>,then poured two cups and sat across from Maggie. “Okay,” he said. “What are you doing here, Mom?” If the photo had just landed, Maggie must have dropped everything to hightail it to his doorstep. Oddly sweet, in a way. If he’d known at thirteen that _that_ would get her attention, maybe his life would have turned out differently. He was surprised by how calm he was, how good it felt that his friends had leapt to his defence.

“I’m not allowed to visit my son?”

“People usually call first.”

“I can’t get you on the phone for more than two minutes, when you answer at all.”

“Humph,” said Richie.

“So I thought to myself,” said Maggie, “I’ll go to Chicago, see some of my girlfriends while I’m there, it’ll be great, and I hopped on the train.”

Richie frowned.

“And I’ve been worried about you, Richard. You do take things awfully hard.”

He gestured around the kitchen, which—providentially—he had recently cleaned for the first time since his friends had stayed over. “Well, I’m fine. I’m always fine, Mom.” She eyed him skeptically and he wished he could tell his mother the truth—not about It, necessarily, but the truth. That they could be honest with each other. “Do you remember my friend Eddie?”

She sugared her coffee. “Why, I haven’t thought of him in ages. My goodness. You two were thick as thieves.” She tilted her head. “Have you…” She blinked. “_Reconnected_?” She blinked. “The man in the photo was tall, though.”

Richie realized his mistake. “Nothing like that, Mom. Please be serious, okay? This is serious. Because Eddie, he died last summer. He and Stan Uris—you remember my friend Stanley?—were killed. In an accident. That’s why I went back to Derry.” _The abridged version_.

She covered her mouth with her hands. “Richard, how awful.”

“It was. I’m sorry I haven’t called or come around. I’ve been having a hell of a time, Mom.” Stan. Bowers. Eddie. Jenny. Ted. His career. Fuck, what a year. “Just… a real hell of a time.” He swallowed

“Sufficient unto the day,” said Maggie, and reached across the table to squeeze his hand. Richie let her. “My dear boy, don’t you worry about me.”

Richie, who could only sit with his feelings for so long, said, unevenly, “So how have you been?”

“I’ve decided to sell the house.” That was her all over: ever supremely matter-of-fact. For once, Richie appreciated it. “It’s too big for me, since your father died.”

“Sell the house?” It wasn’t the house he’d grown up in, but still, the Toziers hadn’t moved in twenty years. That house was the last place he’d seen his father alive. “Do you need any—” He stopped mid-sentence when he realized the absurdity of offering to help a woman whose calls he’d been dodging for months.

At least she didn’t make him squirm. “Your father had so many _things_,” she said. “So much clutter. I don’t want to leave you like that.”

“Aw, Mom, don’t be morbid.”

“I’m being practical.” She stood and left the kitchen, returning a moment later with one of her rollers. “These are some of your things. There will be more, but I thought I’d get the ball rolling.”

“Very on-brand to roll a practical reason into your trip, but I don’t want your garbage. You can throw it out in Milwaukee as easily as I can throw it out here.”

“If it’s anyone garbage, it’s yours.”

“Humph,” said Richie.

“Anyhow, I’ve taken a room at the Marriott.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” said Richie, thinking, _Thank fuck_.

“Don’t be silly,” said Maggie. “I know you.”

“Not as well as you thought,” he said. Distantly, he thought to himself, _Hmm, I brought it up. Interesting._

“No,” she said, watching him with an odd expression. “I suppose I don’t. But I’m sorry for that. That’s why I came. It can’t be a coincidence that you never told me, so I think—” She fidgeted with the collar of her blouse. “I owe you an apology. A few apologies, probably. I do love you, Richard. Richie.”

“What—I—What?” Richie stared, stunned. Maggie _never_ conceded.

“I can’t check in until 3:00,” she said. “May I use your shower?”

“Why not,” said Richie, giving up on any semblance of a normal day. “There’s towels in the cupboard.” He sure hoped there were towels in the cupboard. “I’ll make us some lunch.”

“You? Cooking?”

“_I’m _having ramen,” he said. “If you had warned me you were coming, I’d have ordered some for you too. But I’ll cook you an omelet. I got a great recipe from a friend.”

“I have to admit I’m surprised,” said Maggie. “Cooking! Is this a homosexual thing? Oh dear, that sounds terrible.”

Richie rolled his eyes. “Forget surprised,” he said. “Prepare to be amazed.” He sent her on her way, then looked at his phone and a fresh string of messages: _okays _and _love-yous _and from Mike, <I’m good too. Wasn’t named. Guess there’s benefits to being a country librarian instead of famous like you guys, ha ha. Talk later?>

<Will do> he replied.

He decided to get the suitcase out of the way while she was otherwise occupied. God forbid she’d want to go through it together. Step 1: dump it out. Step 2: find something to comment on to show that he’d looked at it. Step 3: throw it in the dumpster, cook for Maggie, and close the book on the whole thing. He unclipped the luggage strap, undid the zipper, and shook the bag out over the living room floor, belatedly hoping that there was nothing fragile inside. The flotsam of his childhood spread across the rug: creased photographs (he recognized Bill and Mike in one, Stan in another) and some worn action figures, the program from his high school grad, a shot glass printed with text too worn to read, an essay on _The Crucible_ with an A- marked in red pen, a birthday card from his parents, a postcard from Ben at architectural camp, a pair of swim-trunks he could not imagine ever fitting, a pack of NKOTB trading cards…

“Jesus, Mom,” he said, shaking his head. “Why did we save all this?”

A battered shoebox wrapped in several rounds of yellowed, peeling packing tape stood out in the rubble. Richie picked at it, sticky remnants clinging to his fingers, until he could get the top off. Inside was a paper envelope from Keene’s Pharmacy, which held a handful of photographs, mostly badly angled proto-selfies of him and Eddie. Richie, who had been crouched on his heels, fell back onto his ass. Judging by his unfortunate attempt at facial hair, they had to be 16 or 17 years old, giggling themselves insensible in every shot but one. Just kids. The last one was Eddie asleep, leaning against a window. They must have been on a bus. A school trip, maybe. The memory flickered in his mind like firelight. He’d taken Maggie’s camera without permission and milked the opportunity for all it was worth, knowing how pissed she’d be when he got back, and on the way home, although the sun-warmed bus was a powerful soporific, he’d been too scared to let himself slump against Eddie’s shoulder the way he wanted. He’d wrenched himself awake each time he began to nod off. He chewed at a flake of skin on his lip, relishing the sting of it. With his old phone wrecked in the cavern, the photos in his hand were the only photos of Eddie he had. He was glad to have them.

The shoebox held a handful of other things: a friendship bracelet, an unlabelled cassette tape, a first aid kit, a stone with a hole worn through the centre, ticket stubs… Richie picked one up and peered at it: a show at the _Aladdin_, he figured, but the text was illegible, smudged in a pocket, faded by time. He had a vague recollection of a summer spent sneaking into R-rated movies, him and Eddie and Stan, with Ben out of town and Bill and Mike usually working out at the farm. He remembered a sudden act of violence that had frightened him very badly and grabbing Eddie’s hand without thinking.

He put the ticket back in the box.

Beneath it was a yellowed piece of paper folded in half, one edge rough, as though it had been torn from its place. He unfolded it. It was the title page to _Foucault’s Pendulum_, and across the blank space, written in felt pen alongside a crudely sketched dick, was an inscription:

Richie goggled. His old copy, the one that Ted had returned to him through the crawlspace, was on the coffee table. He swiped at it, grabbed it, opened it, and spotted the frayed edge near the binding at the start of the book, something he’d hadn’t noticed before. He set the torn page in place—just right—and remembered, then, tearing it out before he left for college: it had been too gay to leave where a new roommate might flip through and find it, but far too precious to throw away.

His buzzer sounded, making him jump.

While he hunted for cash, the noodle girl set the containers on the hall table. Maggie’s arrival, not to mention the revelation of Richie Tozier’s Secret Box of Homosexual Yearning, had shaken him and he couldn’t find his wallet. Then he heard a strange sound and looked up from rifling the pockets of a third jacket to find the noodle girl crying. _Weeping_, more like.

“I don’t want to seem insensitive,” said Richie, “but I can’t handle this right now.”

“I’m s-s-sorry,” she sobbed.

“Is there something wrong with the food? That’s not a problem, kid. I can live without noodles. I’ll still pay. Don’t worry about it.”

“I should have told you before,” she said, with a hideous, snotty inhalation.

Richie grimaced. “About the food?”

“He was my brother and I loved him so much,” she said. She held out an envelope. “I took this out of his desk. He had your letters and a p-pen from The Noodle House. I promised myself I’d deliver it, but then I actually found you and I d-d-didn’t know how to tell you, so I kept putting it off. I saw him for the last time a year ago and—”

Her emotion was a riptide and Richie was helpless on the shore. He took the envelope.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, and sprinted for the stairwell without taking his money.

Battling an unruly flutter in his stomach, a bleach-wash of anxiety, Richie looked at the envelope. It was sealed and marked only with “RICHIE” on the front, written in the neat hand he’d come to recognize. He strained to remember Ted’s face, but the memory merged unhelpfully with that of Eddie’s. How was that for fucked up? He wanted to pour himself a drink, but opened the letter instead.

_ Richie, _

_ I don’t know what to say, because I want you to change your mind, but I don’t want to force you to do something you don’t want to do. Right now, today, I can’t give you what you need. What you deserve. But maybe in a year I can. _

_ My father-in-law has decided to rent out the cabin for a year or two, see what kind of money he can make without giving up the place altogether. The thing is, I know the idea didn’t occur to him until I brought it up, and I only brought it up because of you. The laws of physics say that everything that happens only happens once, that we don’t get do-overs, but despite that, and despite the fact that it goes against most of what I know about physics and philosophy, I can’t believe it’s set, my future, your past. We only live once, too. I’ve asked for a separation and I’m going to do everything in my power to get to you. I’ll drive out and put this in the mailbox today, and I know you’ll get it somehow. I have to believe that you will. _

_ You can call me here any time: 718-594-9560. _

_ Good luck, Richie. Wish me luck too, wherever you are. _

_ I told you a stupid lie before, before I knew you, because I was scared. My name’s not Ted. It’s Edward—Eddie—and I love you, too. _

_ Eddie _

Richie considered the smooth, neat writing in Ted’s letter. He walked slowly back to the living room and considered the smooth, neat—if slightly more enthusiastic—writing in Eddie’s inscription. He heard Bev’s voice: _an unavailable married guy with an acerbic wit and an insurance background, but it’s not about Eddie? _He thought, _Ted, Eddie, no, it’s impossible._

The only way to put the whole thing to bed was to call the number Eddie, Ted, whatever, had provided.

Richie dialled with a shaking hand.

A man picked up—an older man, by the sound of it. “Ted?” said Richie, tentatively. _Tedtatively, _he thought, on the edge of rationality. _Ha ha_.

“Who is this?”

“Sorry,” said Richie. “My name’s Richie Tozier. I’m looking for Ted Moore.”

“What?”

“Ted Moore. Is he around?” Richie could make out muffled shouting, the man calling for someone. Tyra, it sounded like, and Richie thought of Eddie’s wife, of Ted and the noodle girl and the coincidences that ironed out time’s wrinkles. It wasn’t Myra’s fault that he’d lost Eddie, that she’d had him all the years he might have, but jealousy gnawed at him all the same. He was conscious of every minute that she’d had Eddie and he hadn’t—moreover, every minute that Eddie could have been free of his fear and wasn’t. He couldn’t decide if it was worse to have missed it or if it would have been worse to watch Eddie fall in love and get married. He fidgeted with a loose thread on his cuff. Who was he kidding? He would have paid any price for more time.

Speaking into the phone again, the man said, “You have a lot of nerve calling here, calling my only daughter to—”

Distantly, a woman’s voice. “—Not your ‘only’ daughter, for goodness sake. Will you stop? I—You know what, I have actually had it with you. Give me the phone.” A rustling, the phone being handled, and she said, “Hello?

“Uh, hi?”

“Did you say your name was Richie?”

“Yeah. Who is this?”

“This is Myra Kaspbrak. I could have come to your show, you know, but I have no desire to meet. I knew you’d call eventually, though, so I kept this number active. I’m afraid ‘Ted’ gave you a false name—Eddie Kaspbrak was my husband, but he passed away last year.”

Richie dropped his phone, bouncing it off the edge of the coffee table. He picked it up—miraculously, the screen was undamaged and the call hadn’t failed—and found that Myra was still talking. Myra Kaspbrak. _Myra, his wife of 17 years_. Ted. It was impossible. He wondered if cellular radiation had fried his brain.

“He had letters from you in his desk,” said Myra. “_Crazy _letters. But he never mentioned you, not once, and now you call me. You call me and—”

“Whoa, back this train up,” said Richie. “Your husband was Edward Frank Kaspbrak, the risk analyst from Maine? Short, angry, caustically funny?” He was shouting into the phone. “Myra, I need to know.”

“You were sleeping with my husband and you’re yelling at _me_?”

“I was _not_,” said Richie, shocked. Then he remembered the clasp of Ted’s fingers—Eddie’s fingers—and the feel of his lips, and realized Myra was incorrect only in degree. He started laughing.

“Don’t laugh at me,” said Myra. “Don’t you dare!”

“Listen to me,” said Richie, gasping, hysterical, surprised when she actually quieted. He caught his breath, then said, “Fuck it, I don’t have time for this,” and hung up. _Win the lottery and lose the ticket indeed_, he thought. _Typical Tozier_.

“Mom!” Richie banged on the bathroom door. “Mom! I need you!”

“Good grief—what?” She opened the door, clothed, thank god, with her comb in her hand.

“I need your help,” said Richie. “I need to go out of town.”

“What?” She followed Richie to his bedroom, where he rifled the dresser and threw his phone charger and some clean shorts and t-shirts into his duffel. “Why? If you don’t want me here, you can say so, rather than this whole song and dance, but I would like for things to be different between us.”

Richie ducked back into the bathroom, looked for his toothbrush, couldn’t find it, and gave up. “Mom, I want that too. I swear I do. But this is an emergency. It’s—fuck, it’s June 29th. This is a five-alarm, 9-1-1 emergency.”

“So phone 9-1-1! Where are you going?”

“The airport,” said Richie, who had already called an Uber and was pulling on his shoes. “Then New York. I need you to take care of Sergeyevna. Please. It’s so important and she’s a dream. Her kibble is in the hall closet, and there’s treats too, and her leash is on the hook by the door.”

“Richard—Richie—this is crazy.”

“It’s for Eddie, Mom.”

“Eddie?” She stared, open mouthed. Then said, more softly, more gently, more kid-gloves, than Richie could ever remember her speaking, “My dear boy. What can you do now? Eddie’s gone.”

“That’s debatable,” said Richie. “Mom, no parties. Sergeyevna, be good!” The dog barked and he was out the door.

He had to wait three hours for the first available flight (“Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane, ain’t got time to take a fast train,” he’d said to the clerk, trying to show that he was calm and collected while she eyed him nervously) and was nearly crawling out of his skin in the security line. He didn’t have enough _time_. How did the magic mailbox really work? Ted—Eddie—wouldn’t be there, but could someone forward it, the way that that the property manager had forwarded Richie’s mail? If their days passed roughly in sync, could Richie reach him in time? But how could he share what he knew without stranding Eddie alone in his terror? He’d said he crashed his car when Mike called. What if Richie triggered something worse, if he changed things too much and lost control, spun out? The nightmare image of Stan in the tub, the drip-drip-drip of blood onto the tile, flashed in his mind.

In the boarding lounge, he went online to rent a car and scan old Derry newspapers, trying to plan. He didn’t have a risk analyst’s mind, goddammit. He also tried to get the cabin, but it was booked. No matter—he only needed the mailbox. On landing, finally, he picked up the keys for his rental, downed an energy shot, and took off without pausing to check his phone. Probably a dozen missed calls from Maggie, and Pete and Mike and all the rest of it would have to wait. It was nearly midnight when he reached the mailbox, screeching to a halt at the end of the lane. He’d written his letter on the flight, scrawling it in a plain black notebook he’d bought at the airport, then sealing the whole thing in an envelope labelled, **THIS MUST REACH EDWARD KASPBRAK (PHONE NUMBER: 718-594-9560) BEFORE JULY 1st. HIS FATHER-IN-LAW NEIL MOORE OWNS THIS PROPERTY. URGENT!!! EMERGENCY!!!**

He jammed the package into the mailbox, slammed the door shut, and waited. _Count to 100, _he told himself, but his resolve broke before he reached 60. He opened the box. The envelope was gone, but nothing had replaced it. Shivering in the dark, he heard only the wind. It began to rain, cold droplets needling his face. He’d spurred Eddie to encourage Neil to rent out the property and Eddie had prompted The Matchbox Theatre to book him, but what if his present panicked flight to Rosendale made things worse? He wracked his brain to remember what Eddie had told him about time travel. He had said that the past couldn’t be altered—that any “interference” from the future was, theoretically, already integrated into what happened. That everything that happened only happened once. _What’s-his-nuts, Nabokov, whatever, may be the Clarence Clemons of physics_, thought Richie, _but he never had to fight a demon clown from another dimension_. He had written his letter to change things for the good, but if he succeeded in saving Hagarty and Mellon, would Mike still know that it was time to call the Losers home? If he saved the kids, Vicky and Dean, would other people get hurt instead? Would Bowers do more damage or less? Had he been too cryptic? Not cryptic enough? Had the letter reached Eddie, but simply scared him out of his mind? Could he try again? Should he? Fuck, what if he _caused _it, all their pain, all that suffering? And if the past couldn’t be changed, if things were a done deal, was it happening even then? Scribbling on the plane, things had seemed so clear. It had seemed easy, child’s play, but that certainty had abandoned him. _Spock’s_ fucking _Brain_. His nose started running, because he was crying again. “Give me a break,” he shouted, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “I have had such a shitty day, such a hard goddamn year, give me a break!” He kicked the post of the stupid fucking mailbox and howled in pain.

“Mr. Tozier?”

Richie snapped his head up and blinked to clear his vision, which did absolutely nothing for the rainwater smearing his glasses. “What? Who are you?” He squinted.

The man held out his hand. “Kamenosuke Sato. We’ve corresponded.”

“The property manager? Wow, what’s Neil paying you? It’s the middle of the night.”

“I expect to be more than adequately compensated,” said Sato, still with his hand out.

Richie, driven by an impulse toward social niceties—of all times to be polite—shook it and said, “I know I‘m not booked, but I needed to use the mailbox.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and tried to _not_ look like a madman, but it was difficult when he was soaking wet and had been caught screaming at nothing in the middle of the night.

“Of course,” said Sato.

A flash of lightning illuminated the night: Sato’s shadow was not shaped like a man’s. “Hang on,” said Richie. “How did you know who I was?” Sato reached out and touched the centre of his forehead with one cold fingertip, and pain exploded in Richie’s head.

**Getting served — A year in the life — Insurance geeks — Kamenosuke Sato (III)  
_Eddie_**

Eddie stood up from the table. No one had buzzed and they never interacted with their neighbours, but that had been a definite knock. He went to the door and looked through the viewer: a clean-shaven older man in a dark suit stood there, a friendly, mild-mannered smile on his face. A grandfatherly type. Eddie opened the door.

“Mr. Kaspbrak?”

“Oh no…” He groaned. “Am I getting served?”

“Served what?”

“What?”

“My name is Kamenosuke Sato,” said the man. “I’ll be managing the Brautigan Road property for your father-in-law.”

“Okay?”

Sato held out a package. “Mr. Moore and I were inspecting the property when this arrived.”

Eddie recognized Richie’s writing and snatched the package from Sato’s hands.

“Mr. Moore was occupied with his daughter, I believe, and disinclined to forward your mail.”

Eddie cringed. Had Myra fessed up? “Yeah, I’m sure he was,” he said. He wanted Sato to leave so he could open Richie’s letter.

“But I assured him that he did not want to interfere with the US mail, and that as I planned to visit the city, I would be pleased to see the package to its proper place.”

“Well, thanks,” said Eddie. “Hope Neil’s paying you well for all that.” He wondered if he should tip the guy.

“I expect to be more than adequately compensated,” said Sato. “I believe things should be in their proper place, don’t you?”

“I guess,” said Eddie, who was getting weirded out.

“Won’t you open it?”

He wanted to tell Sato to go away, but the package felt hot and urgent in his hands. _This must reach Edward Kaspbrak before July 1st_. It had arrived in the nick of time. His stomach lurched. He opened the package.

_ Eddie, _

_ Today is June 29, 2017, and I’ve realized something important. It’s going to sound batshit crazy, but you have to believe me. _

_ On July 2, 2016, you’re going to get a phone call and you’re going to be more scared than you’ve ever been in your life. I know, because I was too. But I’m telling you now: you’re brave enough. You are. _

_ You said you didn’t believe the future was set, so there are three things you’re going to have to do. _

  1. _This one’s three-in-one. Sorry. Call the police in Derry, Maine to the Derry Bridge at 8:15 pm on July 1st. Then, when Mike calls, tell him that Vicky Fuller and Dean McQuarrie are in danger. Last, after you talk to Mike, make sure Stan is okay. Be SURE. Call him at 404-202-6102. Tell him Richie said it would be all right. Tell him Patty needs him. This will all make sense soon._
  2. _Don’t turn your back on It. Never, not once, no matter what. You can make It small._
  3. _I’ll be scared when you see me, but I’m not scared anymore. Tell me to go easy with the ax and when it’s all over, come to the cabin today. I’ll be here._

_ Eddie, I love you. _

_ Richie _

_ PS I know you’re thinking, what the fuck? Here’s proof. _

“What the fuck?” said Eddie. He reached into the envelope and found a creased, yellowed piece of paper: the title page to _Foucault’s Pendulum_. “‘For my best friend,’” he said. “‘So he can stop stealing mine.’” Something prickled in his memory, just out of reach. Flopped alone—not alone?—on his bedroom floor and reading…

“Good luck, Mr. Kaspbrak,” said Sato, and pressed one cold fingertip to the centre of Eddie’s forehead.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” said Eddie, jerking backward, trying to shove the guy away from him. Pain had exploded in his head.

***

_He’s in the cavern, struggling to speak. He had hurled the iron post through the air and felt the world break open, but there’s still something he has to do, something he has to say. Something he needs to tell Richie. Something Richie needs to know. He had been too scared. He had waited too long. “Richie.” He wants to grab him, but his arm won’t move. “Richie.”_

_ Richie takes his hand and holds tight. He’s beautifully warm, a relief. “Yeah, buddy, I’m here. What is it?”_

_ It’s too late, Eddie thinks. How can he say it? How can he make Richie understand? Too late. “I fucked your mom.”_

_ Then he’s falling, falling, falling._

_Then he lands._

Eddie had only ever seen the word “It” capitalized—strange and frightening—in two places: his brief correspondence with @farminglibrarian and Richie’s last letter. The thing was, he had never told Richie about those emails.

He made the calls. He telephoned the Derry police from a flip phone bought at a bodega near his office and gave a fake name and address, and when Mike called, pulled over with his hazards flashing and told him about the Fullers and the McQuarries.

“How do you know that?” said Mike, after a moment of heavy silence. “Eddie, do you remember me?”

“No,” said Eddie, tremulous, because he didn’t, not really. “But I can’t explain. I need you to not ask me. I am freaking the fuck out and I need you to let it lie, okay?” He almost asked who Stan was, but didn’t think he could bear an answer.

“Okay,” said Mike. “I trust you.” He spoke with utter conviction, which frightened Eddie more than disbelief would have. “I’ll see you soon?”

“I guess,” said Eddie, shaking uncontrollably while traffic roared past, honking and irate. He took a deep breath, then headed for home. He’d never been so frightened, but once he was safe at home, he could finish what Richie had asked him to do. He had to.

Safe behind his dead-bolted door, still shaking, he dialled Stan’s phone number.

“Patty Uris speaking.”

“This is Edward Kaspbrak. Can I speak to Stan, please?”

“He’s working at the moment, but can I take a message?”

“I really need to speak to him.”

“I’ll get him to call you back.” She sounded uneasy.

Eddie, who had heard the sharp edge of panic in his voice, didn’t blame her.

“If you’re selling something, I’m sorry, but—”

“No, please,” Eddie blurted. “I need to speak to him. It’s urgent.” He didn’t want her to hang up. He said, hurriedly, “Richie Tozier told me to call.”

“Oh, _Richie_. Are you one of his school friends, too? Who was it… Mike! Mike already called. You guys planning a reunion or something?” She laughed. “We’re already booked for next month, we’re going to Argentina, but I’ll get him for you. Hang on; we’ve still got a landline and I’ve got to find the other handset before this battery goes.”

Eddie wiped his palm on his pant-leg, then shifted his phone and repeated the move. He heard Patty’s voice, muffled, “Stannie, I know you’re working, but you’ve got another call.” More rustling, and a man spoke into the phone, voice tight with tension. “Who is this?”

“Uh, Edward Kaspbrak?”

Stan’s voice changed immediately, surprised but unguarded—the voice of a friend, not someone staving off a telemarketer. “Eddie? Is that really you?”

“Look, I don’t know who you are, but I need to make sure you’re okay. I have to tell you, um, that Richie said it would be okay. And that Patty needs you. Are you okay, Stan?”

Stan took a long, shuddering breath.

_After 15 minutes of 4-8-12 breathing in the car fails to settle the tremor in his hands, Eddie walks into the restaurant. The hostess leads him to a back room, where he finds Bill and Mike and Stan, and their names bloom in his head like flowers in spring as soon as he sets eyes on them. How could he have forgotten them? How could Stan’s name have meant nothing to him? Well, Myra had said that fear caused blockages—if only she knew. Mike tells him that he’s dealt with the Fullers and the McQuarries, and when Stan gives him a strange look, Eddie fumbles through a non-explanation until he’s saved by the gong. He looks up and Richie’s there. Richie’s right there._

_“But how do you know It’s back?” says Stan, once they’ve ordered and eaten. “How do you know for sure?”_

_ “I’ve got a police scanner,” says Mike, “and last week, I heard a callout to the Derry Bridge.”_

_ Eddie concentrates on his drink. After Richie’s ham-fisted crack about him being married “to, like, a woman?” he decided to keep his mouth shut about the mailbox. Make no mistake, he’s not going to let Richie get away, but they’ve got to survive the next 48 hours first._

_ “I went out there,” Mike continues. “I always check these things out, if there’s water involved or the sewer. And the cops were hauling off some assholes who’d been hassling a gay couple, but I was underneath, by the river—”_

_ “Cut to the chase, man,” says Richie, snappish, and Eddie knows it’s because he’s scared._

_ “I saw It,” says Mike. “The clown. It waved at me and said, ‘Have the happy couple if you want. Have those kids. The turtle still can’t help you.’”_

_ “What’s that supposed to mean?” says Ben._

_ Mike frowns, pensive. “Well, The turtle is an important figure in many cultural and religious traditions, and–”_

_ “Holy shit,” says Eddie, realization slapping him in the face. “You’re ‘farminglibrarian,’ aren’t you?_”

_He turns with wide eyes. “What did you say?”_

“You missed it!” Mackenzie yelled, standing in the doorway to Eddie’s apartment, vibrating with anger. “You promised you’d be there, you promised you wouldn’t make me go to the wedding alone, and you missed it.”

“Mackenzie, I’m sorry,” said Eddie. “It was an emergency. I didn’t have a choice.”

“You are such a liar!” Mackenzie shoved him and he staggered backward. “I thought you weren’t like the rest of them, but you are. You don’t care about me. You bailed on me so you could bone your D-List boyfriend!”

Eddie, who had been trying to figure out how to explain his week without referencing It and despite the headache beating behind his eyes, stopped short. “Wait, what? My what?”

“I was looking for paper, because Myra finally told us what you did and Mom said I had to help her pack, and I was trying to make a list, but my phone died, so I was looking for paper and I found all these letters in your desk.”

“In my desk,” Eddie repeated, horrified, even while thinking, _Richie’s at least B-List, especially for his field._

“How could you?” Mackenzie shoved him again. “I told you the worst thing about me and you didn’t say _anything_. You were getting letters from him last fucking year—you think I don’t remember?”

“Mackenzie, listen—”

“No!”

“LISTEN,” Eddie shouted.

She fell onto the hall bench, small and scared and sad.

Eddie pulled back to give her space, trying to make himself non-threatening. “I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Myra. The truth, okay?”

She folded her arms. Made a face at him like, _Go on_.

“I asked Myra for a separation in June. We didn’t tell anybody, because it was private. Myra was embarrassed.”

She nodded.

“Last week, I had to go back to Derry, Maine, because my friends needed my help.”

“You don’t have any friends!”

Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose. Having his ass handed to him by a teenager was second only to the same from his dying mother. “I’ve had the most godawful week.” He gestured at his bandaged cheek. “An escaped convict stabbed me in the face! Rest assured, I was not having fun of any kind. I have not been cheating on your sister.” His headache was mounting. “More importantly, there is no universe, Mack, where being gay would be the worst thing about you. Do you understand that? I have given multiverse theory way too much thought, so you can trust me on this one.”

“Who’s Richie, then?”

“Richie is my friend. From years and years ago.” He thought of the loneliness of his college years, the way that he and Myra had clung to each other, Myra crying softly after a visit from her father when she thought Eddie couldn’t hear and waiting on Neil hand and foot all her life, mistletoe therapy and his mother’s smothering attention, and sitting alone in a Jersey hospital because Myra didn’t want to make the drive. He and Myra had tried desperately to recreate a relationship neither of them had ever had.

“Myra said you kissed him.”

Shit, she’d shown Myra the letters? Myra wasn’t a fool: of course she’d put two and two together. Eddie said, “I did. Once.”

“That’s enough.”

“Adults make mistakes,” he said. “They get married when they shouldn’t. They don’t—”he swallowed—“they don’t realize they’re gay. They hurt people they care about. I’m sorry.” He rubbed his forehead. “Do you understand that there’s nothing wrong with you, Mackenzie? You have been so fucking brave, and in a way I couldn’t even imagine when I was your age.”

“Is your boyfriend teaching you comedy? Emily’s going to Loyola to study theology_. _I’m not going to college. I’m a fucking DYKE and if they find out, they’re going to lose it.” Her face crumpled, and through gasping tears, she said, “They’re so mad at you. Dad’s saying the worst shit, even for him.” She took a breath. “And I don’t want you to not be my brother anymore.”

“Shit, Mack, come here.” Eddie reached out and she ran into his arms. “I’ll be your brother as long as you want me to be. I love you, kid. I love everything about you.” Suddenly, his headache sent an icepick through his eye, and he shrieked and fell to his knees.

“Eddie! Eddie, what’s happening?”

Mackenzie’s voice was far away. His vision of her blurred, then faded.

_While Ben tends to Mike and Bev calls 911, Eddie and Stan sidestep the puddle of vomit and Bowers’s prone form. “You okay, Richie?” says Stan._

_ “Thank you, STAN and EDDIE,” says Richie, loudly, pointedly. Then, low-voiced, he says, “No.” He laughs weakly, and holds out his arms. “Now who has the steady hand?”_

_ “I was scared you left,” says Eddie, who’d fidgeted so much thinking of Richie while Ben cleaned his cheek that Bev had moved to stand behind him, her hands a comforting weight on his shoulders. Beside him, Stan nods._

_ Richie flushes. “I was going to. Then I drove past the synagogue and I got thinking.” He turns to Stan. “If you could stick it out…” He shudders. “When you said, ‘go easy with the ax,’ Eds, I assumed you were making fun of my aftershave. Do you moonlight as a TV psychic?”_

_ “Shut up,” said Eddie, thinking about Richie’s letter. “I just know what kind of trouble you get into when you’re left to your own devices. But it’s going to be okay.”_

_ “I’m deeply reassured,” says Stan. He gestures at Bowers, tourniquet-bound but still breathing. “Things are certainly going great so far.”_

_ “No, I’m sure,” says Eddie. “He told me.”_

_ “I almost killed someone. Jesus.” Richie wipes his mouth with his shirttail. “Wait, when did I say that? Are you sure you’re not muscling in on Miss Cleo’s territory?”_

_ A siren wails outside, stifling Eddie’s retort, and Mike says, “We can deal with the police later. Right now we have to go.”_

Richie was onstage. “As some of you may know, I came out a couple months ago,” he said. “And I would love to tell you about my incredible new post-alcohol, post-cigarettes life with my new man, but since it was hard enough to actually convince him to come tonight—I see the faces you’re all making: get your minds out of the gutter. He’s going to kill me for that. Awesome. Anyway, I’m saving the really juicy stuff for my therapist, so get ready to hear more than you ever wanted to know about our new dog…”

Eddie sat back in his seat with his arms folded, resolutely determined not to smile, but having limited success. He liked to tease Richie in his own way, but the truth was, he’d take jokes about their sex life (because _they had a sex life!)_ over Richie’s old endless stream of jokes about women any day. His “your mom” repertoire had only been the most obvious example. Once, Richie had grabbed his hand at the movies—after ’89 he’d been skittish of movie violence, though his fear mortified him—and Eddie, resolutely refusing to consider why he personally might want to cling to Richie’s company like a barnacle, had nevertheless been eager and nervous and thrilled, until Richie decided to pretend it had never happened, instead blathering endlessly about whatever actress they’d seen topless on film. A dart of pain shot through his temple and the stage was partially obscured by a strange glow. _Oh no_, thought Eddie. _Not a migraine, not on Richie’s big night_. The dart sharpened and Eddie moaned.

“You okay?” Someone nearby shone a cell-phone flashlight into his eyes.

Eddie yelped, then blacked out.

_Bill’s in his face, yelling, and Eddie is frozen._

_ “Do you want It to get Richie?”_

_ Eddie looks back and forth between Bill, wide-eyed and sweating and furious, and Richie, wiping spider guts off his face._

_ “Bill, it’s all right,” says Richie. Bev retrieves his glasses from the floor and cleans them on her shirt._

_ “Do you, Eddie?” says Bill._

_ “No!” Eddie manages. “No! I don’t. I got scared, Bill.” He and Richie had looked to the ceiling and found the spider-creature, which had spat a terrible gurgling laugh and said, “I told your little friend: the turtle can’t help you. He isn’t allowed to interfere!” Then the thing had thrown itself at Richie’s face and Eddie had thought of Richie’s letter again—don’t turn your back on It, never, not once—and pressed himself against the wall in terror. “I just got scared.”_

_ Mike puts his hand on Bill’s shoulder. “We’re all scared, man.”_

_ Bill backs down._

It was December 24th in Nebraska, and Ben and Mike hoisted Eddie up, despite his protests, to put Ben’s mother’s old star on the tree, while Patty and Bev set a menorah near the front window. The rest of the group—Bill, Stan, and Mike—were in the kitchen making dinner and dessert: Bill had gotten hooked on making sufganiyot with Andrea Uris back in high school and was rediscovering the recipe under Stan’s supervision. Eddie never would have admitted it, not even to Richie—well, maybe to Richie, later—but when he’d seen his stocking hanging from the mantle, he’d almost (almost) choked up. It was dumb, but with the Moores, it had always been “Myra and Eddie” and as a child, he’d used his father’s. Forty years old and he finally had one of his own.

Star planted, Eddie straightened his shirt. Richie had found an old Jim Reeves Christmas LP in Ben’s collection and was loudly speak-singing “Teach Me How To Pray” while Patty giggled helplessly.

“For god’s sake, don’t encourage him,” said Eddie.

Bev poked him in the side. “You love him.”

“Him, yes,” said Eddie. “That, no. Must we, Rich, with the Christmas music on Hanukkah?”

“Okay,” said Richie, amiably. “I’ll find something else. Patty, help me look?”

Eddie’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his sweater pocket as Bill came in, covered in powdered sugar and carrying a tray of drinks.

“Mike’s making cocktails,” said Bill. “Virgin on the left, regular on the right.”

Patty looked up from the crate of records. “Your left or my left?”

“Now you’ve confused me,” said Bill, brow furrowed in concentration.

Eddie checked his phone. It was a message from Mackenzie, with a photo of herself at the hostel where she was working in New Zealand and the message, <Send me a holiday selfie, STAT.> It had been her idea to try working abroad, through a program she’d found online. Emily was off to college, but Mack wanted to go her own way and had bought her ticket with her savings. Though Eddie had helped her with the visa paperwork and fees (and vetted the program itself), out there on the other side of the world she was holding her own, sharing a house, working hard. He was ferociously proud of her. “Rich, come here: Mackenzie wants to see your face for some reason.” He grabbed Richie’s wrist, tugging them closer to a tall floor lamp, and since Bev and Patty were untangling another string of lights, said, “Big Bill, take a picture for us?”

Beeping sounded from the kitchen. “Bill, I need you,” Mike called.

“I’ll send Stan out,” said Bill.

Stan came, dusting his hands off on his pant-legs, then took Eddie’s phone and snapped the picture, Richie resting his chin on Eddie’s shoulder. Then he said softly, “No _way_.”

Eddie groaned. “I want a _nice _one.”

“Don’t look at me. I—”

“Guys, shut up and turn around,” said Stan. “_Slowly_ and _quietly._”

Slowly and quietly, they did. From their spot by the lamp, they could see over the bar that divided the living room and the kitchen at an angle their friends by the Christmas tree could not. Bill was sitting on the counter, Mike leaning into him. They were kissing.

“With _tongue_,” said Richie, reverently. “Were we all pining for _each other_ the whole time? What a bunch of losers.”

“Not me,” said Stan. “I have taste.”

“You sure do, baby,” said Patty, from across the room. “What are we talking about?”

A sharp pain struck Eddie suddenly and he brought his hand to his head.

“What’s up?” Richie was at his shoulder.

“Migraine aura, maybe.” The pain sharpened fiercely and suddenly, like someone had taken hold of his brainstem and given it a shake. “Richie!” he cried out, terrified. “I can’t see!” He groped for Richie’s hand.

“I’m right here,” said Richie, panic in his voice. “Ben, what do we do? Eddie, hold onto me.”

The pain stole his breath. Then it took everything else.

_They stare down three doors—very scary, scary, not scary at all—and Richie grabs Eddie’s wrist. Eddie thinks of watching action movies from the back row of the Aladdin, of watching Richie surreptitiously wipe his wet eyes at Penn Station, of sitting perfectly still in a bus seat with his eyes closed wishing fervently that Richie would give in and sleep on his shoulder, and twists away._

_ “Sorry!” says Richie and shrinks into himself, face blotched and as spooked as he’d been on the Skydive patio, like he thinks Eddie will hit him._

_ “Shit, I’m sorry, no, not that!” says Eddie, panicking, realizing how it must have looked. “I didn’t mean— I needed my hand.”_

_ Richie looks over his shoulder. “For what? Is that fucking spider-thing back? Fuck, which door—”_

_ Eddie drops the fencepost to interlace his fingers with Richie’s properly and Richie stops talking, shocked into silence. For once in his life, Eddie thinks. He kisses the back of Richie’s hand. “For that.”_

_ “Are you making fun of me? Don’t you fucking dare.” His voice pitches high and he flushes further. “I can’t fucking take that right now.”_

_ Eddie shakes his head. “I’m not, I promise. I—I wanted to be brave. Like you said.” He holds up his bare left hand. “Yes, I got married. Yes, to a woman. But it’s over. It was over before Mike called. And I think you and I have a lot to talk about.”_

_ Richie looks to his own hand, still held, then back to Eddie. He couldn’t have looked more astonished if Eddie had grown a second head, but he doesn’t let go._

_ “You don’t have to say anything now,” said Eddie. “We’ll worry about it later. Just… when I make fun of you, Rich, you’ll know, okay?”_

Eddie bustled around the kitchen, everything nearly ready. Ten more minutes and he could take the prime rib out to rest, the table was set, he’d turned on the dishwasher… “Good, good,” he muttered to himself. He was glad he’d been able to take the day off, even as the new guy, or he never would have finished in time. “Fuck! The cake!” He had to get the cake out of the refrigerator to come to room temperature. He heard a key in the lock and the skittering click of Sergeyevna’s nails against the laminate as she ran for the door. He whipped off his apron, threw it on the hook beside the fridge, and put the cake on the counter.

“I’m home,” called Richie. “What are you cooking? It smells _amazing_.”

Eddie poked his head out of the kitchen, into the hallway, and said, reproachfully, “You’re _early_.”

“Sorry,” said Richie, grinning, not sorry at all. “Edward Frank Kaspbrak, is all this for little old me?”

Eddie couldn’t keep his posture of grumpiness going. “Happy birthday, Rich.”

“You’re the _best_,” said Richie, sweeping Eddie into his arms.

“Ugh, put me down, asshole.”

“The food in Reno was terrible, you have no idea,” said Richie, ignoring him. “Wait, there’s _cake_, too?”

Eddie struggled free and swatted Richie on the arm, then stumbled as dizziness rolled over him.

“Whoa, babe.” Richie kissed him on the cheek. “Did I spin you too hard?”

Eddie grabbed Richie’s arm to steady himself, blinking to clear his strangely blurred vision. “I don’t feel good.”

“You want some water? What do you need?”

Eddie’s head throbbed and his knees gave out.

_Eddie’s pants may be wet with greywater or he may actually have pissed himself. He’s not sure._

_ Richie hurls a rock. “Hey! Fuckface!”_

_ Eddie starts to run. People say that insurance analysts are risk-averse geeks too afraid to cross the street without the right policy, but they’re wrong. Adrenaline floods his blood. A good analyst knows exactly which risks to take. He doesn’t need the turtle’s help. He doesn’t need magical monster-killing ironwork. He’ll protect Richie himself._

_ “You’re a sloppy bitch,” Richie hollers._

_ Eddie slams into him, tackling him out of the way, and remembers just in time to never turn his back on It, never, not once. Covering Richie’s body with his own, he looks up—into the deadlights._

_ He sees everything._

It was late, the night after Richie’s big show, their friends readying for bed in the space he and Richie had made for them, and Eddie was in bed, chatting while the other man brushed his teeth in the ensuite. His phone beeped: a text from Mackenzie. <This is you and Richie with that book lol>

> When I was 7 I had a crush on a girl in my class & didnt know how to deal w it so I wrote her a letter that just said "get out of my school"
> 
> — JeffreyPostlethwaite (@JeffreyPoss) [December 5, 2015](https://twitter.com/JeffreyPoss/status/673117124429262848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

Eddie snickered and sent a screenshot to Richie. When he’d bought the paperback in 1994, he’d wrapped it in paper and two plastic bags, lest _anything _damage Richie’s gift, and as soon as he’d got home, he’d drawn a dick on it. <He’s had that book for 20 years.> he replied. <You should be taking notes.>

Richie spat, rinsed, spat again, and said, “Eds?”

“Shoot.”

“How old were you when you and Myra got married?”

Eddie did the math in his head. “It was ’99, so 22? No, 23.” He’d been stretched thin over a vast and unnavigable Losers-shaped hole in his life, scrabbling for purchase in a frightening world.

“You were a _baby_.” Richie emerged from the bathroom. “Could you even support your own neck?”

“What were _you_ doing in 1999, hotshot?”

He crossed the room and climbed into bed. “I don’t know. Smoking pot and listening to the Chili Peppers?” He started giggling. “God, I remember.”

“What?”

“I had an insane crush on the grad student TA-ing one of my courses. It was the last one I needed to graduate and I was a wreck.”

“What did you do?”

Richie scoffed, incredulous. “Nothing, obviously. I pined. I failed the fucking class!”

Eddie patted his shoulder. “Why’d you ask anyway?”

“Well, I know you and Myra wanted to have kids.”

“Yeah.” Eddie thought of those years and how quickly they’d gone by, hopeful sometimes, lonely others, but it didn’t hurt as much as it once had.

“So I was thinking, if you had, they’d be, like, Mackenzie’s age.” He blushed, then added, “I just mean, well, she’s great because she’s herself, but… You helped.”

Eddie blushed too. “You’re sure you don’t mind if she lives with us for a while?” Mackenzie was coming back to America and although she wasn’t destitute, she wasn’t exactly swimming in cash and had decidedly _not_ reconciled with her parents or, unfortunately, her sister, though Christopher and Danielle had handled the situation better than Eddie would have once expected.

Richie looked him in the eye. “She’s family, Eds.”

Eddie reminded himself that Richie didn’t lie to him, didn’t say one thing and mean another. He had never been able to trust Myra’s answers, not really, nor the answers he gave her. With Richie, he was learning, painstakingly, to articulate his emotions and to trust his partner to do the same.

“Normally,” said Richie, “if a teenager voluntarily suggested moving from New York City to the Midwest, I’d consider it a cry for help, but I understand the draw: you’re here.” He smiled. “She should have a safe place to land. If we could do that, that’d be good. Besides, my mother will spoil her like nobody’s business. We’ll have to keep an eye on her.”

“Mack?”

“No—Maggie. Typical: now that she’s decided to be supportive, she’s overcompensating.” He read aloud from his phone, full of wonder, “‘Tozier’s sophomore effort surprises and delights.’” He laughed. “Okay, take my phone away or I’m going to read tweets about myself all night.”

Eddie plucked Richie’s phone from his hand and put it on the bedside table. He moved to kiss him, but was knocked back by pain like a blow to his head. The room spun around him.

“Eds?”

The room was growing brighter and there was a roaring in his ears.

_“A place for everything,” says Sato, “and everything in its place.”_

_ Eddie can neither speak nor move. He’s in the deadlights, but he’s not scared. He doesn’t feel anything._

_ Sato peers at him from across a great darkness. He’s shaped like a man, but he casts a strange, rounded shadow._

_ Eddie thinks, How can you cast a shadow in the dark? Are you the turtle? _

_ “Yes,” says Sato. “Could you not tell? I did name myself carefully.”_

_ Forget names—what do you know about It? _

_ “It chose to enter your universe. Thus in the time of your perspective, It is bound by your universe’s rules and those of the shape It inhabits. I chose to withdraw and thus am bound by mine.”_

_ It said you can’t interfere._

_ “I cannot,” says Sato. “And I have not. I am outside; I have observed.”_

_ Meddling with the Hudson Valley rental market doesn’t count as interference?_

_ “I have pressed upon your world, but I did not break through. It did that, tore a wound in the world when you struck It, Mr. Kaspbrak, then died without closing that wound.” _

_ Talk about splitting hairs in the coils of Transcendent Time._

_ Sato pays him no mind. “Mr. Tozier doesn’t know, but he’s been dragging time’s entrails through his worldline. He is tied to you, to permutations of the moment of your separation.” Sato exhales, the hum of his breath a vibration that shakes Eddie’s bones. “I believe you would call it an Einstein-Rosen bridge.” He laughs. “Or a mailbox.”_

_ Wait, Eddie thinks. You said “from the time of my perspective.” If we kill It, does It disappear from everywhere, from everywhen? Can we save everyone? He thinks of little Georgie Denbrough, Betty Ripsom and her lost shoe, Eddie Corcoran and his brutal father, Veronica Grogan, Hockstetter, Bowers, however many hundreds, thousands, of others._

_ “You can’t undo what brought you here,” says Sato. He throws out his hand and a spray of light spills from it “Do you see?”_

_ See what?_

_ “Is a rainbow an arc or a circle?”_

_ What the fuck are you talking about?_

_“The bridge connects but two specific points, shifting forward, not back,” says Sato. “I regret—”_

_ You should regret, thinks Eddie. Feeling rushes through him, then: fury, white-hot. How dare you withdraw? How dare you speak in riddles at me, some kind of fucking space-sphinx when you’ve been watching a monster ruin lives for god knows how long, watching us die because of YOUR personal best practice? He can imagine Richie saying, Only you, Eds, would pick a fight with the functional equivalent of a god. It’s been a thousand years since he’s seen Richie, touched him, and he wants nothing more in any world than to stand next to that disastrous goofball once again._

_ “Everyone is bound by certain unbreakable rules,” says Sato. “Gravity, for instance. My non-interference was not a matter of policy. I have been waiting for the opportunity—”_

_ FUCK your rules._

_ “Do you remember when Mr. Tozier set your arm?”_

_ Yes, Eddie thinks. He hears his high-pitched child’s voice, Don’t fucking touch me, don’t fucking touch me. He’d been scared because It was advancing on them, because his arm was broken, and because Richie’s single-minded focus on him was the-most terrifying thing he’d ever experienced. He had been afraid of Richie and _that _had been so horrifyingly wrong he couldn’t cope. A cold spot grows at the centre of his forehead_

_ “This is like that,” says Sato, “Ah! Here he co—”_

_ Eddie drops—_

_—Then he lands._

***

Eddie woke alone in the dark, not sure where he was. He had a crick in his neck and dried blood on his lip. He had fallen asleep in an armchair, and sat up, shifting to stretch his shoulders and blinking as he made out shapes in the dark, the old leather sofa, the little dog in front of the fireplace, while memories broke over him like waves.

He was at the cabin and he could hear shouting outside.

**Richie catches a break—Risk analysis—Turtles all the way down—Schrödinger’s comedian—Doing real good (II)—The thing with feathers (III)—Dietary restrictions (II)  
_Richie_**

In the distance, lights flared into life.

“Shit!” Richie yelled, not caring. The rain was cold and a jagged bolt of pain in his temple had knocked him to his knees. He clutched his aching head, elbows digging into the mud, not sure how long he’d knelt there. Minutes maybe, or hours, or months. “Shit!” There was a flash of lightning and Richie heard a familiar, impossible sound. Sergeyevna skidded to a stop in front of him, put her muddy front feet on his muddy knees, and tried to lick his face, and Richie realized that Sato was gone. It was Sergeyevna, though: her collar, her tag, her cute face. “Sweetie, what are you doing here? My mom’s not here, is she?” Another flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, and Sergeyevna whimpered. “It’s okay,” said Richie, and patted her head. “I think.” He heard the crunching of gravel, then, and looked up again to see someone sprinting hell-for-leather down the lane, yelling something Richie couldn’t hear. “Although, maybe not.” He raised his voice to shout over the rain, “You want to talk”—he was fixing for a fight—“you say it to my face.” The figure drew closer and Richie realized that he wasn’t fit to fight at all. His head throbbed. He couldn’t stand. He had Sergeyevna to think of. “_Shit_,” he said for a third time, with feeling, figuring he was about to get shot.

“I said,” the figure yelled, close enough by then that Richie could make out the words, “‘Hey, asshole, some of us are trying to sleep!’”

Richie’s heart flipped, because he’d know that voice anywhere. He’d never forget it again. Eddie stood 20 feet away from him, wearing khakis and a polo shirt, and he was the most beautiful person Richie had ever seen. He scrambled to his feet, fell because his foot fucking _hurt_, rose again, and met Eddie halfway. Eddie, whole and unbloodied, breathing and warm, hugging Richie back like his life depended on it. Richie clasped the back of his head and held him close, closer, closest. “Sorry,” he managed.

“For _what?_” Eddie said, face pressed into Richie’s chest. “Don’t be sorry. You saved my life.” He took Richie by the shoulders and surveyed him top to toe. “Holy shit,” he said. He put his hands to Richie’s face, ran his thumbs over Richie’s cheekbones. “Let me look at you. I’ve missed you so fucking much.”

Richie wanted to tell Eddie that he loved him; he wanted to not be too disgusting to kiss. Instead, he said, “You got my letter?”

Eddie shrugged, smiling up at him. “Neither sleet nor hail, blah, blah, blah.”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” said Richie, “but I think I broke my toe.”

Inside, Eddie emptied a tray of ice cubes into a Ziploc bag and handed it to Richie to ice his foot, then towelled down Sergeyevna, his shoulder hunched to press his phone to his ear. “Yeah, it’s me.”

Richie, too muddy for the sofa, got his coat off and sat on the kitchen floor, grateful for the ice despite his shivering dampness.

“I know it’s the middle of the night, but I found him and I thought you’d—Yeah, for sure.” Eddie offered the phone to Richie. “It’s for you.”

Richie wiped his nose—on his sleeve, so his hands were clean(ish)—and took the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, Richie.”

“Uh,” said Richie, because the voice was familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

“It’s Stan. You okay, Richie?”

Richie burst into tears. He managed, “Fuck, man, it’s good to hear your voice,” but then had to hand the phone back to Eddie.

“I’ll stay with him,” said Eddie. “God, I know, right? It’s a mind-fuck. Okay. We’ll talk to you tomorrow. Say hi to Patty for me.” He went to the sink and ran a glass of water. “He says Patty wants to know if you like lemon-ginger cheesecake or if she imagined it. I—oh my god.” He handed both the glass and a miniature Kleenex pack from his pocket to Richie before sinking to the floor next to him with a dismayed groan. “It was _Patty _in Atlanta. I thought you guys were an item!”

“_What_?” Time-travelling mail was one thing, but that was ridiculous. “_Why_?”

“You said you were in Atlanta for Valentine’s Day, visiting a _friend_.” Eddie flexed his fingers around the word. “What was I supposed to think? I was so—god, I was so sad about it. And mad at myself for not being happy for you.” He laughed, rueful.

“But I’m gay,” said Richie, wetly, at a loss. “And it was _Patty_.”

“Yeah, but _I _didn’t know that. When you told me, you know, about you, I thought maybe you just hadn’t wanted to say you were meeting a man.”

“You way overcomplicated things, buddy.” He sniffled, but patted Eddie’s knee.

“No shit, Sherlock.” He turned. “Hey, if Patty remembers, that means we’re not the only ones.”

“Have I lost my mind?” Richie was shivering. “Am I still in the deadlights? Or tripping? Or brain-damaged? I only did cocaine three times! Maybe four.”

“_Maybe _four_?_” said Eddie. He disappeared into the living room, then came back with a fleece throw, which he draped over Richie’s shoulders. “You know what, never mind. Park that for later. The point is, I got your letter a few weeks after Myra and I separated. Neil was here to do a walk-through with the property manager. He gave it to Sato and Sato gave it to me.”

“Sato?” Richie blew his nose. Eddie’s hand had been on his shoulder. He couldn’t believe it. “He was just here.”

“But not now.”

“Did you remember me before Mike called?”

Eddie shook his head. “Even when I saw you, I felt like I knew you, but I didn’t know why. I had no fucking clue what you were talking about in your letter, but I trusted you.”

“If you’re here, why don’t I remember it differently? I remember the way it was when you—” Richie couldn’t say _died_. “I mean, what did you do all year, then?”

“Dude, magic mailboxes aren’t my wheelhouse,” said Eddie. “But I think, maybe, you don’t remember it the same way because it didn’t happen to you. But it happened. Everything happens, but all stacked on top of each other.” He moved his hands like he was playing an accordion. “Time stretched out, but then it had to collapse.”

“It’s turtles all the way down,” Richie murmured.

“Why’d you say that?”

“I don’t know.” Richie drained his glass, feeling drained himself. “What’s that thing? With the cat and the box? Wave function collapse! Is wave function collapse a standard part of risk analysis? If so, I think you undersold your field.”

“You remembered!”

“One-love, Tozier versus high school physics,” said Richie. “With the help of Wikipedia.”

Eddie grinned. “I’m impressed. I got interested in the science of it when I realized I really believed that you were from the future. I started thinking about the risks.”

“Of course you did,” said Richie. As sudden as a lightning strike, he couldn’t wait any longer. “Eddie, I love you,” he said. “I love you now, I loved you years ago, I loved you when I thought your name was Ted, I loved a guy I met at midnight in a bar.”

Eddie held out his left hand. It was bare. “I told you then that you’d be okay. You’ve got to trust me, dickhead.”

Richie cleared his throat, then blew his nose again.

“Here’s what I think,” said Eddie, warming up to the flow of his explanation.

Richie nodded. By that point, he would have listened to him monologue on drug-resistant bacteria. He sniffled again and watched him, awed, dazzled.

“In the deadlights you can see it all,” said Eddie, “and your nightmares were other possibilities.”

“I never told you about my dreams.”

“Didn’t you?” said Eddie, and he blinked, then shook his head. “Anyway, It claimed to be the eater of worlds, right? So I think, based on what Sato said to me, the deadlights were a mechanism for that, destroying whole worlds… Not just potential, but actual _whole worlds_, because they existed and It destroyed them—I think that’s part of why it seemed liked nobody cared: people forgot—but in the deadlights, you could see them, too. So our world, when we killed It—” He was gesturing furiously and speaking fast. “If the way we normally experience time is like a train on a straight track, then when we killed It, that knocked us _off-track_. It had torn this big _wound_—like a dislocation—but you and me, we were still connected.”

“Sure,” said Richie, not following.

“You remember being in the deadlights, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, so do I, because I knocked you out of the way.”

“No, you didn’t,” said Richie. “You saved me, though.”

“After or before?”

“After.” Richie wiped his eyes. “I think?”

Eddie took his hand. “You’re cold,” he said, and rubbed it.

_Oh my god,_ thought Richie, because his mind had regressed to that of a middle-schooler next to their crush at the movies. “Wait, you talked to Sato? When? After he gave you my letter?”

“I saw him in the deadlights,” said Eddie. “He said that what was happening to us was like when you set my arm back at Neibolt, when we were kids.”

“The—what’d you call it? Dislocation?”

Eddie nodded. “I got your letter, I made the calls you asked for, and when we all got to Derry and you walked into the Jade, I flipped. And underground, I knocked you out of the way, then _you_ got _me_ out of the deadlights, and I thought of my fucking father-in-law and how he always made me feel, and then we killed It and I went home and missed you like I was dying of it. But I knew I’d get here. I knew it was only a matter of time.” He raised his eyebrows, looking around. “And here we are.”

“I remember you at my show at Halloween,” said Richie. “But only Mike came to that show. You made me a birthday dinner? But I was alone in Reno on my birthday… And Mike and Bill… Jesus. My head hurts. My foot hurts. Fuck.”

“We got this thing back on the rails,” said Eddie. “The clown… It was like a virus.”

“It should have known you wouldn’t stand for that.” Memory shot through Richie’s body like electric current. “Shit! Where’s Mackenzie? She’s the noodle girl! Is she okay?”

Eddie switched to Richie’s other hand and said, “She’s safe at home.” He squinted, pained. “Memories colliding. Never thought that’d explain the migraines. Where was I? I went home with you after Derry and she—Wait, did I?”

“She lives with us,” said Richie, slowly, trying to remember the past year. The ache in his temples accelerated. “The spare room—I mean, Mack’s room.” He wanted to rub his forehead, but didn’t want to lose Eddie’s touch.

“That’s right,” said Eddie, nodding. “She got back a couple weeks ago. She’s working at the noodle place around the corner and she might do some courses through City Colleges in the fall.”

“How are you so calm? How is your brain not melting?”

“I’m well acquainted with anxiety,” said Eddie. “And I think it’s easier to reconcile a year’s worth of experience with, uh, nothingness”—he shivered—“than it would be two full, separate years. Or maybe because I was in the deadlights. I don’t know.” He gestured toward Richie’s wet, muddy jacket, hung over the back of a chair. “You’re drenched. We can stay here if you want, but that might be weird? I’m sure we can get a room in town.”

_Presumptuous, _Richie wanted to say, but he was too delighted to give the joke voice. He stood and wobbled, but Eddie was there to brace him. “I can’t believe Neil rented to you.”

“I’m barred from the property,” said Eddie. “Joke’s on him, the homophobic fuck: Stan rented for me.” He put his arm around Richie’s waist. “It’d serve him right if we had sex here.”

Richie sputtered.

“Okeydokey, big guy,” said Eddie. “Let’s go.”

But Richie didn’t go. He wrapped his arms around Eddie and held him close.

Eddie returned his embrace. “I’m not going anywhere without you, Rich. Oh!” He looked up. “I love you, too. I’m sorry it took me so long to say.”

Richie didn’t know if he meant that night, specifically, or the years that It had stolen, but it didn’t really matter. “Don’t worry, Eds,” he said. “It’s okay.”

***

Richie woke in a room he didn’t recognize, flailed outward, struck someone _in his bed_—Jenny? Shit!—and fell over the side. He shielded his eyes from a sudden flare of light. Where was his book? He couldn’t find his book. He rubbed his eyes and remembered that he was in a motel in Rosendale with Eddie. With _Eddie_.

Eddie himself leaned over the side, blinking sleepily. “Richie? What happened?”

“Nightmare,” said Richie, from the floor. Sergeyevna trotted to his side and nosed his cheek.

“The bed…” Eddie looked perplexed.

Richie got to his feet and patted the bed: the mattress was damp and he and Eddie stared at each other, Richie thinking he might actually rather be dead than have pissed the bed, but then Eddie said, “Dude, you sweat right through your clothes. You can have a shower if you want, I brought good towels, or we can move to the other bed right now?”

“It’s fucking gross,” said Richie, miserably, and pushed his damp hair off his forehead. “I’m sorry, Eds.”

“You didn’t do it on purpose,” said Eddie, deploying a concern-to-withering-contempt ratio that seemed specially formulated to make Richie feel better.

He hobbled to the bathroom, washed his face, and changed into a clean shirt and a clean pair of shorts. When he came back, Eddie had stripped the comforter off the second double bed, turned on the television and set it to a low murmur, and was tucked in, waiting for him.

“You want to talk about it?”

Richie shook his head. “I don’t remember it. It wasn’t like the others, the deadlights dreams. I think it was a regular nightmare.” He rolled his shoulders, stretching out his muscles. “Weird to think of that as an improvement.” He climbed into bed and sat next to Eddie, not sure what to do with himself. His memories told him that he’d sat next to Eddie that way, like a partner, a lover, hundreds of times, but it felt like the first time.

“Give me your hand?”

Richie acquiesced without thinking, wondering what Eddie wanted, and was genuinely surprised when Eddie kissed his knuckles.

“Is that okay?”

Richie nodded. The ghost of Eddie’s kiss buzzed on his fingers. Had he done that underground in Derry? Surely, Richie would have stone-cold passed out if he had. They’d gotten to the motel and into their room around 1:30 in the morning, Eddie had given Richie one of his spare toothbrushes, and they’d cleaned up and fallen into bed. They hadn’t talked about it, but simply done it. He glanced at the clock: five a.m.

Eddie squinted at him. “Are you wearing one of my shirts?”

Richie looked down. The shirt he’d pulled from his bag was one he’d grabbed blindly from his dresser the day before. It was also the one he’d taken from Eddie’s hotel room in Derry. Had he stolen it before Myra arrived to claim her dead husband’s things, or did he have it because he and Eddie had mingled their laundry? In any case, it strained at his shoulders and rode up over his belly. “You know, I think I am,” he said.

“You look stupid,” said Eddie. His gaze flicked away, then back again. “You could… You could take it off.”

“I may not be able to,” said Richie, covering himself with a joke while his heart raced. “Tight fit.”

Eddie leaned forward and Richie moved to match. His kiss was tentative, gentle and light, but only until Richie lifted his hands to Eddie’s cheeks. Then they were keen and clumsy, and Eddie tugged at the hem of Richie’s borrowed shirt, which did get stuck on his shoulders, though they managed to wrestle him out of it, and in his turn, Richie fumbled with the buttons of Eddie’s soft pajama shirt until he could push it from Eddie’s shoulders. For a time, he simply looked: no wound, no scars.

“What, have I got something in my teeth?”

Richie shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it,” said Eddie. “Now are you going to kiss me again or not?”

Richie did and the sensation was incredible. Eddie’s hands were on his sides, pressing tight, while his framed Eddie’s face as they kissed. He stroked the side of Eddie’s neck and Eddie caught his breath, shuddering.

“It wasn’t stupid,” he said, breathing hard, having pulled back. “Well, it was, but I liked it.” He kissed Richie again.

Richie slid back against the bed, pulling Eddie with him, and Eddie was on top of him, kissing his jaw, his throat, his collarbone, the thrill of it prickling Richie’s skin. “You’re here,” he said, and gasped, because Eddie, still in his pajama pants, had pushed against his hips, and Richie had never felt anything like that in his whole life.

“Can I touch you, Rich?”

“You can do anything you want,” said Richie, desperately honest. Then, because Eddie had stilled, “You okay?”

“I’m fi—” Eddie stopped. “No. Not really.”

“Okay,” said Richie. “Can I fix that?”

“I don’t—I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said. “I’ve only—”

“Had sex with women? Me too.”

“Been with Myra,” said Eddie, and he reddened and turned his face away. “I mean, I know we have, because I have those memories, but _I haven’t,_ and I…”

Richie couldn’t recall seeing him so embarrassed before. “I’m in a glass house, man,” he said, softly. “I’m not throwing stones.” Eddie collapsed on top of him, then, and he thought, _Turtles all the way down_, fancying he could feel all the worlds of his life, all his potential lives, collapsing to that one infinite moment. He stroked Eddie’s back. If the man wanted to snuggle, that suited him fine. “This is good, too. You’re nice and small, like one of those weighted blankets.”

“You ass,” said Eddie, into his shoulder, knife-scarred cheek pressed against his skin.

“I know I didn’t warn you that Bowers was coming,” said Richie. “But I was afraid of changing things too much, things spinning out, new bad shit happening that I wouldn’t know to warn you about.”

“That’s actually very risk-conscious of you,” said Eddie. “And I’m glad you didn’t kill him—for your sake, not his. God, I understand how it all happened—I mean, sort of—but… why? Why us, I mean, when things could have broken so bad…”

Richie settled one hand on the small of Eddie’s back, the privilege of it staggering, and said slowly, “‘I won’t tell you there’s no map, if you can’t figure it out for yourself.’” The words had rolled across the surface of his mind and out his mouth. He was on the edge of a realization, but he was also very tired. He was, he realized, almost entirely content, and a good sleep just might nudge him over the finish line.

“What?”

“It’s from the book. The one you gave me—twice, as it turns out.” Eddie’s bare skin was warm and his flare of anxiety had subsided under Richie’s touch. “Reminds me of something Mike said about moving on, moving forward—that we just have to do it and hope for the best. There’s no reason.” He yawned. “But that’s the reason.”

“Whoa, stand back, Descartes.” Eddie shifted just enough to kiss him again. “I was worried about you, you know, thinking you were like that guy, Belbo. Thinking life was passing you by. You, uh—shit, this sounds stupid, but you didn’t peak at 13, Rich. You’re doing real good. I wanted to tell you that before, but I didn’t know how.”

“It’s been really hard,” Richie whispered. He concentrated on his breathing and the feel of Eddie’s chest against his, their heartbeats.

Another kiss. “Yeah, it has.” Another. “Want to go for breakfast in a while?” Another. “I know a good place.”

***

Sometime later, both moderately well rested and freshly showered, they took a booth at Laura’s, where Richie ordered pancakes and coffee and Eddie did the same.

“They’re not gluten-free,” said the server, perplexed, paused with her pencil over her notepad.

“Bring it on,” said Eddie, like he was confronting a mugger. “I’m ready.”

Richie stared, because Eddie was gorgeous and he could look all he wanted

“Who are you,” said the server, “and what happened to Eddie?”

“He did,” said Eddie, pointing at Richie. “Those pancakes aren’t going to order themselves, Denise.”

She laughed, slapped him on the shoulder, and turned toward the kitchen.

“With whipped cream!” said Eddie, suddenly. “And actually, make that a latte, please.”

“Got it,” she said.

“Going Derry-free?” said Richie, with an exaggerated wink.

“What? No. I—” Eddie made a face. “That was terrible. By the way, I’ve know her for years. She makes fun of me all the time, so I wasn’t being a dick to a random server.”

“You? A dick for no reason? Never.” Richie cut Eddie off when he started to object. “You always had a good reason. That’s what I’m trying to say. I trust your reasons.”

“Oh,” said Eddie, settling back into the booth, mollified. “Thanks.”

Someone had left had a crumpled newspaper and a wrinkled magazine marked with glass rings in the corner of the booth. When Denise returned with their drinks, Richie moved to push the papers off the table and onto the seat, then stopped. “Eddie, don’t freak out.”

Eddie had a spot of milk foam on his nose. “When in the history of our relationship has telling me not to freak out _ever_ worked?”

Richie wanted to kiss that spot, but instead swallowed painfully and pushed the magazine toward him. It was a recent issue of some entertainment rag, turned to a photograph of him, Eddie, and Sergeyevna walking back from the bakery late at night, him and Eddie hand in hand.

Eddie quickly scanned the page. “God, did they get us _again_? By ‘climate activist,’ do they mean ‘someone with common sense?’ And our whole bakery order? I can’t believe people find this inter—” He stopped and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know where that came from.” He put his hands flat on the table and took several slow, deep breaths, in through his nose and out through his mouth. “I guess,” he said, once he’d finished, “that’s going to keep happening for the foreseeable.”

“Happy birthday, Eds,” said Richie. “Can I kiss you or would that be déclassé around these parts?”

“Yes,” said Eddie, looking up from the magazine, nose still foam-spotted.

“Yes, I can, or yes, it would be déclassé?”

“The first one,” said Eddie.

Richie balanced on his elbows and leaned across the table to indulge himself.

**Karaoke — People in their forties— Sisters — By the Rivers of Babylon  
_Mackenzie_**

On the Fourth of July, buzzing with nervousness, Mackenzie took the bus to the Loyola campus, where she met Emily, who was enrolled in a work-study through the summer. They hadn’t seen each other since Mackenzie had gone to New Zealand and they’d only Skyped a couple of times, but Mackenzie was glad to see her all the same. She’d felt a spark, a quiet thrill, on seeing her across the bus loop, and wondered if Emily felt it too. She had got her braces off, but her smile was the same.

They were the last to arrive at the noisy, crowded restaurant, but Eddie had saved them two seats between him and Richie. As he introduced them—“I really like your haircut,” said the redhead, Bev, and Mackenzie was thrilled—a clatter drew her attention: a few guys muscling sound equipment out of a back room.

Eddie said, “Rich, if you brought us to a karaoke bar, I will _kill_ you.”

“Not on purpose,” said Richie, gleefully. He clapped his hands. “A happy, happy coincidence.”

“Yeah, you like those, don’t you?”

“Have you ever even been to a karaoke bar?” said Bev.

“No, and I didn’t intend to start.”

Emily leaned close and whispered, “Didn’t he…”

Mackenzie nodded, then broke in, “He did karaoke with me at my 13th birthday party.”

“Traitor,” said Eddie. “For that, you can buy your own dinner.”

“Tell me everything,” said Richie, reaching around Emily to plaintively clasp Mackenzie’s hand. “I beg of you. Are there photos? Is there video?”

“Not a word,” said Eddie, brandishing a fork.

Bill banged his menu on the table. “Mackenzie, I will give you fifty dollars for details.”

Next to him, Mike laughed, bright and happy.

Mackenzie looked around the table, her brother—_brothers_, she thought she could safely say—and their friends, who sure seemed happy for people in their forties. “I hear 50,” she said. “Do I hear 60?”

“One-hundred dollars to say nothing,” said Eddie, though Mackenzie suspected he was playing up his irritation for amusement value.

Her phone buzzed and she pulled it from her pocket, intending to switch it to do-not-disturb, but finding instead a notification she couldn’t ignore. She opened the email.

_ Mackenzie, _

_ I want to apologize for the way things have been between us, and if I could, I’d like to do it in person or on the phone. If you’d like that too, please let me know. It’s up to you. I do mean that. Chris has kept me updated on your year, since I’ve been too stubborn to ask you myself. It sounds like you’ve done very well. _

_ Your sister, _

_ Myra _

“Point of order,” said the other woman, Patty. “Can you confirm the existence of video?”

“Yes,” said Mackenzie, and put her phone away to contend with later. Much to consider.

Eddie eyed her appraisingly. “You okay?”

Thinking about it, she found that she was—she really was. She nodded.

“Two hundred dollars,” said Patty’s husband. Stan: that was his name.

“Hang on, you guys.” said Richie, tilting his head. “Listen.”

Recognition flickered on Ben’s face. “Oh my god,” he said.

Whatever it was, Mackenzie didn’t recognize it.

“Benjamin, do not deny that you still know all the words to this.”

“My mom loved disco,” said Ben, protesting.

Richie sang along, gesturing at Ben.

Emily leaned in again to whisper, “What is this?”

Mackenzie, though she couldn’t help bobbing along, shrugged. “I have no idea.” It was catchy, though weirdly biblical? She couldn’t see whoever had actually chosen the song.

“Ben, come on, you can do better!” To Mackenzie and Emily, Richie added, “it’s a disco cover of a Rastafarian song. You ever heard of The Melodians?”

Mackenzie shook her head.

“I’ll play the album for you later. I got it years ago.”

“At that record shop in Bangor,” said Eddie, squinting as he concentrated on the memory. “Maggie lent us her car.”

“Correction,” said Richie. “She lent _you_ her car. To be fair to her, my driving has improved substantially since then.” The verse repeated, then, Richie singing along in exaggerated bass, Ben joining in more enthusiastically if also blushingly.

Bev and Patty came in on the chorus, and the latter tugged Stan’s sleeve until he rolled his eyes and joined her. Bill and Mike kept time on the table.

“You guys are so embarrassing.” said Mackenzie, delighted.

Eddie sighed. “What can I say, Mack? We’re losers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes:
> 
>   * A paparazzi photo outs Richie to his mom. (Things will be okay!)
>   * Slurs and expressions of internalized homophobia.
> 
> And a few fun notes:
> 
>   * I wondered if it was too implausible for Richie to forget the inscription written at the front of his book--then, while recently going through old papers, I found letters I had COMPLETELY forgotten. Perhaps not so implausible after all...
>   * For what it's worth, when I wrote, "[Richie fancied] he could feel all the worlds of his life, all his potential lives, collapsing to that one infinite moment," I was imagining the feel of [ this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qG9_L1oqyA&t=100) from _A Little Princess_. 
>   * "Turtles all the way down" pops up all over the place, but I first saw it in Thomas King's book _The Truth About Stories,_ which came from[ his talk through the CBC Massey Lectures](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-2003-cbc-massey-lectures-the-truth-about-stories-a-native-narrative-1.2946870). 
>   * In my mind, the movie that freaked Richie out when he was a young teen was _ Point Break _ (of course!), while the song playing in the karaoke bar is [ Boney M's cover of "Rivers of Babylon"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta42xU2UXLA). (And yes, I have seen it done at karaoke.) [ This article](https://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/music/Rivers_Of_Babylon_The_unlikely_history_of_a_pop_hit_based_on_Psalm_137/50257/p1) has more info about the history of the song itself.
> 
> Thank you for reading!  


**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr at [ andloawhatsit.tumblr.com](https://andloawhatsit.tumblr.com).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Richie Tozier, a year in tours: from Angarum by Andloawhatsit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23270893) by [bisexualstevenrogers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualstevenrogers/pseuds/bisexualstevenrogers)
  * [Calling Cards](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26880853) by [andloawhatsit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andloawhatsit/pseuds/andloawhatsit)


End file.
